


Midnight

by pterawaters



Series: Mr. Sandman [4]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Bad Parenting, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, Insomnia, Multi, Period-Typical Homophobia, Polyamory, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Season 2 Retelling, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-01-30 03:10:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21421222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pterawaters/pseuds/pterawaters
Summary: As the anniversary of Barb's death approaches, Nancy feels herself falling apart. When Steve's parents forbid him from seeing Nancy or Jonathan, he feels isolated and trapped. Jonathan can't help but be worried about everyone in his life, especially since Will's episodes seem to be getting worse.
Relationships: Jonathan Byers/Nancy Wheeler, Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington, Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler, Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler
Series: Mr. Sandman [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1527764
Comments: 29
Kudos: 201





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to part 4 of this series! If you haven't read it yet, I do recommend starting with part 1, [Nyctophobia](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21186206).
> 
> This series has five complete stories and a sixth I'm currently working on. I'll try to post every day until I run out of complete chapters.
> 
> The biggest thanks to several beta readers/discussion partners/cheerleaders: magdalyna, saltysantiago, tresa_cho, and ucanhavemysoup! You guys are awesome!
> 
> Artwork is by me.

** _September 1984_ **

“Now, Steven,” Fred Harrington said over Sunday dinner. “Your senior year starts tomorrow. It’s a big year. Only one year of high school left. What sort of thought have you been giving for your future?”

Steve had to bite his tongue to keep from rolling his eyes. He hated these talks. He should have known this one was coming. “Well,” Steve said, wiping his mouth with his napkin to give himself a few extra seconds. “I don’t_ quite _know what I want to do after I graduate.”

That wasn’t exactly true. The answer really was, “Stay in Hawkins until Nancy Wheeler and Jonathan Byers graduate, and then follow them wherever they want to go.” Steve figured it was an answer that wouldn’t go over well with either of them. 

“But!” Steve said, heading off Fred before he could take the opportunity to criticize Steve. “I do have a plan for what I want to do with the basketball team this year. You know, really get us into the championships.”

Fred shared a look with his wife, took a sip of his beer, and then said, “Well, it’s important to have a goal, for basketball and for in life. Just make sure you don’t get distracted from your goals.”

Sensing this was leading somewhere specific, Steve asked, “Distracted, how?”

Fred frowned. “Distracted by your friends, first of all.”

“You’ve hardly been here at all this summer,” Harriet said, pouting at Steve.

“Distracted by_ girlfriends _as well,” Fred added, setting down his fork and leaning back in his chair. “Steven, your grades last year were not good enough. You need to learn how to buckle down and focus.”

_Shit._ “What does that mean, exactly?” he asked, knowing he wasn’t going to like the answer.

“It means I’m putting my foot down. During the school year, on each and every school night, you sleep_ here. _You study_ here_.”

“And what about you, Dad?” Steve asked, panicked rage bubbling up in his throat. “Are you going to be_ here_? Are you going to sleep_ here_?”

Fred’s face turned red and he balled up his fists. “That’s–”

“Remember that trip to Barbados?” Steve scoffed with indignation, looking at both of his parents in turn. “You left me alone for_ three weeks_. That’s not normal.” 

At least Harriet had the decency to look ashamed.

“Do you know who took me in during those three weeks? Do you want to know where I’ve been sleeping all summer?”

“Y-you haven’t been staying with Josh Abbott or Brian Sattler?” Harriet asked, her eyes wide as she shared a look with Fred.

“No!” Steve didn’t think he would ever feel disgusted for pulling this over on his parents, but he did. He pushed away his plate. "I've been staying with Jonathan Byers."

"_Byers_?" Fred cried, pushing his plate away as well. "That family? They're all lunatics!"

"No they're not!" Steve got out of his chair, standing up. "They're good people. Joyce Byers has been looking after me for like six months. Not _once_ did either of you care to figure out where I was going!"

Fred looked at Harriet accusingly. She raised her shoulders and said, "You always showed up for dinner. You always left a note. I figured you were living your life." Her look to Fred was pleading. "He's a boy, darling. Boys do what they will!"

A deep frown on his face, Fred put his balled-up fists on the table. "Does anyone know you've been spending so much time with _that family_?"

The question surprised Steve and confused him. Why would his dad care about who knew, unless…

Unless he was worried about his _own_ reputation. Jesus Christ. Mrs. Byers was right. Steve's parents were selfish assholes.

Sneering, Steve told Fred, "Nancy's the only other person who knows."

Fred gave an audible sigh and leaned back in his chair. He caught Steve's eye and stared at him. "Sit down, Steven."

"No thanks."

Fred glared again, before doing something Steve never expected him to do. "If you want to keep using the car that I bought you, a car no _Byers_ could ever afford, you will sit down this instant."

Realizing that losing his car meant losing whatever little freedom his parents would allow him after standing up to them like this, Steve knew that he was stuck. Without a car, he'd have to get rides everywhere from Jonathan -- and Jonathan needed his car to get to work. Steve would have to get his old bike out of the garage and ride it around town like a twelve year old. Like a _freak_. It would get even more difficult to see Nancy and Jonathan than it already would be during the school year.

Steve hated to make this decision, but he knew he had to. _Checkmate, Dad_. He sat down.

"Good," said Fred. "Thank you.”

Steve decided it would be best if they got right to the point. “What are your demands?”

Fred narrowed his eyes at Steve. Never once did he check in with Harriet. Maybe they had discussed this earlier, but Steve could see his mother out of the corner of his eye. She sat nervously, wiggling her foot under the table. He wondered if she felt she was being chastised too. 

“You are grounded. Every night, you sleep here. Every evening, you study here. You are not to step foot in the Byers house, and none of the Byers are welcome here. In fact, that–that Nancy girl? She’s not welcome either. To think, she knew about you spending time at the Byers house and never dissuaded you!”

With every word his father said, Steve felt his heart crumbling further and further into dust. What the hell was he going to do? There was no way he could give up Nancy and Jonathan just like that. Surely without them he would shrivel up and _die_! 

Feeling the hot prickle in the corners of his eyes, Steve clenched down on this realization. He was _not_ going to cry in front of his asshole of a father. This was the sort of pain he had to take on the chin and fight through. If he didn’t, there was no way his father would ever see him as anything but a screw-up _child_.

For a second, Steve envisioned just leaving and cutting ties completely. The problem was he couldn’t figure out how to do that without leaving Hawkins. If he stayed, Hopper would inevitably find him and deliver him back to his parents. Until he was eighteen, he was stuck. 

Steve felt almost like drowning would be less painful than this.

“I said, do you understand, Steven?” Fred’s sharp tone meant that he’d definitely repeated himself at least once before Steve heard him. 

“I understand.” Steve glared at his father. “May I be excused?”

“You haven’t finished your food.”

Steve would be lying if he said murder hadn’t occurred to him at that particular moment. Thinking Hopper would _definitely_come for him if he murdered his dad, Steve stared directly at Fred as he gulped down the remainder of his dinner. He swallowed his glass of milk in two mouthfuls, then stacked his glass onto his plate. “I’ll put these in the sink, huh?” Steve was way past asking permission again. 

He left the room, went around to the stairs through the downstairs office, and stomped up them as loudly as he could. Sure it was petty and childish, but Steve felt more than vindicated in doing it.

What would Nancy think when he didn’t show up to take her to Jonathan’s? What would Jonathan think when neither of them showed up? Would Joyce worry about him?

If he called either of them, would his parents try to listen in? He picked up the phone, hoping they wouldn’t think of eavesdropping on his calls until later. 

“Wheeler residence?” Shit, it was Nancy’s dad. 

“Uh, hi, Mr. Wheeler. Can I talk to Nancy?”

“We’re eating dinner.” He sounded none too pleased. 

Jesus Christ, Steve was just having all the luck tonight. “I’m sorry, I just need to talk to her for ten seconds.”

“Can she call you back later?”

“I’m afraid not.”

Ted gave an enormous sigh, but he called out, “Nancy! Phone!”

It took a few seconds, but when Nancy answered the phone, “Hello!” she sounded happy. Steve missed her already.

“Hey, it’s me. My parents are being assholes. I won’t see you until school tomorrow.”

“Shit.” Nancy pulled away from the phone, calling, “Sorry, mom!” Coming back on the line, Nancy asked, “What’s going on?”

Steve sighed, laying back on his bed. “They tried to parent me, and I made the mistake of calling them out as being shitty parents. Now I’m grounded, and they’re forbidding me from seeing Jonathan _or_ you outside of school.”

After a heavy pause, Nancy said, “We’ll figure something out.”

Steve sighed, looking out his window at the golden evening light flickering through the woods. “I haven’t slept alone in a long time. I don’t think I remember how.”

Her voice soft, Nancy said, “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

He pictured Nancy and Jonathan sleeping together in the same place that night, but without him. “You won’t forget about me, right?”

“Steve,” Nancy said, in her no-nonsense voice (which honestly always got Steve going just a little bit), “it sucks, yes. But it’s not the end of the world. Everything’s going to be fine.”

“Yeah, sure,” Steve said, but he could see it now: Nancy and Jonathan running away together, their memories of him fond, but distant. 

“I gotta go. I will see you tomorrow. Good night!”

“Hey, give Jonathan a kiss for me, huh?”

Nancy chuckled. “Yeah, alright. Bye, Steve!”

“Bye,” Steve said, feeling more than a little morose. He hung up the phone and kicked around his room for a few minutes, pouting. 

This sucked, but pouting was for losers. Was Steve Harrington a loser? Hell no! He was a freak, for sure, but no loser. Losers didn’t have ambitions. Losers didn’t have _plans_. 

Steve needed a plan. 

What better for a plan than the planner Nancy had given him as a lame start-of-school gift? Steve opened it, and he wasn’t quite sure what he was expecting, but a fancy calendar definitely wasn’t it. Out of curiosity, he flipped to his birthday in March. Seven months. It was seven months away. 

Fuck, that felt like eternity. 

But putting that aside, in seven months, he would be 18 and could live anywhere he wanted. He’d likely need a different set of wheels. This meant having enough money of his own to buy said wheels. 

Unfortunately, he’d have to save his dreams of getting another beemer for sometime down the road. Whatever. As long as it was more reliable than Jonathan’s rust bucket, it would do. 

To get the money for a car, Steve would need a job. He’d need a job, and then some way of keeping the money out of his dad’s hands. He could give it to Joyce, maybe. She would hold onto it for him. He knew she would. 

Steve thought further down the road. He’d have to go to college. There was no way people like Nancy and Jonathan would want to be with some dead weight loser who never went to college, right? That meant getting his grades up. He supposed nerds probably had a lot of sexual frustration that they channeled into good grades. Steve could do that too.

But what about college? If Steve was—shit, was he really considering this?—if he was going to cut off his parents, they were going to cut him off too. No money for college. He’d have to pay his own way. Or get a basketball scholarship.

Which meant come November, when basketball season started, he wouldn’t have enough time for good grades and a job. He needed a job _now_. Jonathan worked at the grocery store. Steve could try getting a job there, but once his dad found out they shared a workplace, he might not agree to let Steve have a job _at all_. Steve needed money if he was going to get free. 

Fuck. 

This was some grade-A, top-shelf bullshit, and Steve should have seen it coming. After all, his dad was one of the best bullshitters Steve knew. 

So Steve spent the rest of the night planning. He slept maybe an hour, with the lights on, and choked down his mom’s cup of coffee before heading to school.

What absolute, mind-boggling bullshit!

~*~

“Hey, guys,” said Steve as he practically crashed against the locker next to Nancy’s. “How’s it going this fantastically shitty morning?” His tone was far too cheery for his words, he looked jittery, and his eyes were a little too wide. 

Sharing a concerned look with Nancy, Jonathan moved to get a closer look at Steve, and asked him, “Are you on drugs?”

“Ha,” Steve replied flatly, his face morphing from false cheer into an adorable pout. “I wish.”

“Did you sleep?” Nancy asked him, pulling a little on the collar of Steve’s polo shirt to straighten it. 

“Not much.”

Jonathan kicked Steve’s shoe lightly, the most affection he felt he could show at the moment. “I slept badly. It was too quiet.”

“I don’t–!” Steve started, cutting himself off before lowering his voice. “I don’t snore!”

Jonathan grinned, then dodged out of the way of Steve’s half-hearted punch. “So what’s the deal? Nancy said you were grounded?”

“Yeah, indefinitely.” He threw another light swipe in Jonathan’s direction. “My father thinks you guys are bad influences on me. Honestly, I think he doesn’t want me fucking with his reputation around town.”

The warning bell rang. Shit. 

“You should get to class,” Nancy told Steve. “Get really good grades, and I’m sure your dad will let up.”

“I’ve got a plan,” he said, pointing to Jonathan and then Nancy as he walked away backwards. “A plan!”

Jonathan thought he heard Nancy say, “Lord help us,” under her breath. She set one last book in her locker and then closed it. “Let’s go.”

“I feel bad,” Jonathan told Nancy as they started walking. “We had all summer with Steve. I guess I figured his parents had sort of forgotten about him.”

“I think he thought they had too,” Nancy agreed, lacing her fingers with Jonathan’s as they walked. “What if his dad’s plan works and we never get to see him?”

“I don’t know,” Jonathan said, thinking about that moment this morning when he realized Steve’s pillow on his bed didn’t smell as much like him as it should have. It had felt like an insignificant detail at the time, but now…

Before lunch, Jonathan found a note in his locker. “Upstairs bathroom. Right now.”

He showed the note to Nancy, who smiled sadly. She pulled Jonathan into a kiss and then whispered, “Give him that for me. I’ll save you a seat.”

Jonathan let her go. He ducked into his locker long enough to wolf down the sandwich he’d brought for lunch, and then vaulted up the center staircase at the first opportunity. 

There were a few guys still in the bathroom when he got there, so he locked himself in a stall to wait. The others left and the bell rang, and then there was a knock on the stall door. 

Jonathan opened it, relieved when it was Steve standing there. He pulled Steve into the stall and properly kissed him for the first time that day. “Hi.”

“I fuckin’ missed you,” Steve whispered, kissing Jonathan once more. “I need help with my plan.”

“What sort of help?” Jonathan asked, fairly certain he was about to be asked for a blowjob. 

“I need to find a job. And I need help keeping my money safe from my parents.”

It took Jonathan a moment of standing there, blinking at Steve, to fully grasp the gravity of what he was saying. “You think your parents would take the money you made?”

“One hundred percent,” Steve said with a nod. “If I’m getting out of that house, I need my own money. I need a job.”

Getting out of that house? Wow, that was much more extreme than Jonathan had imagined Steve’s plan would be. “Okay?”

“Where should I apply?”

Jonathan knew full well that Steve didn’t have any experience. His skills were not very … applicable to the workplace. Still, he wasn’t inept by any means. “Mom said last week that the old fashioned soda shop on the square is hiring.”

“Oh, shit. You’re right! She did say that.” Steve grinned and kissed Jonathan again. Then he pulled Jonathan into a hug and just sort of _hugged_ him, for a good long moment. 

It reminded Jonathan of the year before, when Steve had driven off a bunch of assholes and then hugged him right when he’d really needed it. Jonathan hugged Steve back. “We’ll get through this.”

Steve shifted so his forehead was against Jonathan’s shoulder, his face buried. “If you say so, babe.”

~*~

“Are you sure you won’t get in trouble?” Nancy asked as she got into Steve’s car after school. “I mean, your dad specifically told you to stay away from me.”

“Yeah, I know,” Steve replied, turning on the engine and pulling out of the student parking lot. “But I really think I need the moral support. Besides, Jake Warner offered to cover for me. His car ‘broke down’ and he totally needed me to give him a ride home all the way to the east side of town.”

“What does Jake Warner think you’re doing?” Nancy asked, making sure her seat belt was fastened. Steve likes to drive a little fast for her comfort. 

Steve winked. “Hooking up with a girl from North.”

Nancy snorted a laugh. “What’s your mystery girl’s name?”

“I can’t tell anyone,” Steve insisted with a grin. “She’s catholic and feels so very guilty about how much she wants my body.”

“And if people see you and me together?”

“Whatever,” Steve told her. “I mean, it’s apparently still a running debate whether you’re dating me or dating Jonathan. I guess they’ll just assume it’s my turn.” 

He stopped at a stop sign and wiggled his eyebrows at Nancy, before looking back at the road and pulling through the intersection. She tutted at him. 

When they got to the shop, Nancy stayed back, taking a seat and looking over the menu while Steve asked about the Help Wanted sign. She overheard him doing his best to charm the lady behind the counter, and the way she indulged him with a laugh and a smile. 

Nancy knew Steve didn’t have to worry about her and Jonathan running off together without him. She wasn’t so sure they weren’t going to lose Steve to someone else. If he worked here, meeting people and talking to them every day, what was to say he wouldn’t find someone he liked better? Or at least met someone his father actually approved of and who he could see outside of school hours?

Nancy didn’t like focusing on hypotheticals, despite her brain’s tendency to do so. She tried to focus instead on the positives. Once Steve had his own money, he could get out from under his dad’s thumb. He could learn how to be more responsible. 

Steve came back to Nancy with a piece of paper. “Hey!” He sat down across from Nancy. “I have to fill this out. You got a pen?”

Nancy gave Steve a pen from her purse, watching him as he filled out the form with the sort of focus that she’d only really seen from him in the bedroom. Without really meaning to, she reached over and tucked a piece of his hair back away from his face. 

Steve gave her a smile, that same besotted one he’d been giving her since last year, the same one that used to make her heart flutter with excitement, the same one Nancy had spent hours on the phone talking to Barb about. She prayed that Steve’s plan worked, because she didn’t know how she would survive only seeing him at school.

Steve turned in the application, gave the lady behind the counter a few more charming words, and came back to Nancy smiling. “Thank you.”

Nancy reached up and took her pen back from behind his ear. “You’re welcome.”

Steve dropped her off at home, and Nancy went straight up to her room. There was a note on her desk saying that Barb’s mother had called, and Nancy felt _dunked_in ice water.

Gathering up her courage, Nancy picked up her phone and dialed the number she still had memorized. "Hi, Mrs. Holland," Nancy said when the phone was answered. "This is Nancy, returning your call.

"Oh, Nancy!" Mrs. Holland cried. Her voice sounded thick, and Nancy wondered if she'd been crying. "Thank you for calling."

After a short, awkward pause, Nancy asked, "Was there anything in particular you called about?"

"Not really. I just wanted to know how you were doing. The first day of school was always important to you and Barb."

"I thought about her a bunch today," Nancy admitted. "But I'm doing okay. How are you coping?"

The noise Mrs. Holland made wasn't quite a laugh. "Oh, you know. Not great."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Nancy wished she knew of some way to help Mrs. Holland, but suggesting her own methods of coping wasn't anywhere _near_ appropriate. Sometimes Nancy thought the time she spent with Steve and Jonathan was the only thing keeping her on an even keel. 

"Okay, well," Mrs. Holland said. "I just wanted to check on you, dear. Give my best to your parents."

"Of course."

As she hung up the phone, Nancy was struck by the urge to find a picture of Barb. Was she forgetting what Barb looked like? How could she do something like that? What sort of friend was she?

Ten minutes later, Nancy's mom found her looking through a stack of pictures and crying. "Oh, honey," Karen said, sitting on the bed next to Nancy and wrapping a protective arm around her. "It's going to be okay."

"When?" Nancy asked. It had been almost a year, and Barb's death still felt like a raw wound in her throat. 

"Eventually," Karen insisted, squeezing harder. "Eventually."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve has a plan. Nancy and Jonathan have dinner with Barb's parents.

"Where have you been?" asked Steve's dad when he passed the downstairs office. This was the first time Steve had _ever_ seen him home from work before six. "School got out an hour ago." 

"Forty-five minutes," Steve insisted, hitching his book bag higher up on his shoulder. "And I applied for a job."

Fred's eyes went wider. "Bullshit. Where were you?"

"Miller's Soda Shop." Steve pulled a slip of paper out of his bag, deciding to go for broke. He held it out toward his father. "Joanie Miller says you have to give permission for me to work."

"_You_?" Fred asked with a laugh, standing up out of his chair and taking the paper from Steve. "My lazy-ass son wants to get a _job_? What? Does one of your filthy friends work there?" 

"Nope," Steve replied, standing tall. He was pleased to see he'd grown a little taller than his father. It gave him the confidence to tell the first lie of the conversation. "I thought I'd show some initiative, like Coach is always talking about. Some responsibility. Show you I can be trusted to choose my own friends."

Fred pressed his lips together and looked at Steve for a good, long moment. Then he smiled. "I told Harriet all you needed was a stronger hand!"

Okay, that was not _exactly_ the reaction Steve was going for… 

Fred set the permission slip down on his desk, picked up a pen, and signed it. Handing the slip back to Steve, he said, "You can keep the job as long as your grades don't suffer. Got it?"

"Got it," Steve replied, stashing the slip in his bag and getting the fuck out of there before he did something stupid, like tell Fred the real reason he wanted to work.

After dinner with his folks and actually _doing_ his homework, Steve unearthed from the bottom of his bag the mixed tape Jonathan had made him a few weeks previously. Steve put the music on, left the light on, got in bed, and tried to go to sleep. 

He'd actually fallen into a light doze when a tapping noise woke him up. Disoriented, Steve rolled out of bed and went to his door. When he opened it, no one was on the other side. 

The rapping came again, this time from the direction of his window. What the hell?

Even though the light he'd left on was dim, Steve couldn't see out the window into the dark night without turning it off or getting very close to the window. He chose the latter, surprised when he saw Jonathan's face out there.

Steve opened his window, but there was still a screen between him and Jonathan. "What the ...?" He popped off the screen and pulled it inside. "How did you…?"

"Buzz Murphy was getting rid of this ladder," Jonathan whispered, letting Steve help him get through. Once he was inside, he turned and stuck his head back through. A few seconds later, Nancy's head popped up over the windowsill. 

"Hi!" she whispered with a smile. With Jonathan helping her, Nancy got through the window more-or-less silently.

Still, Steve decided it was time to lock his door. When he turned back around, Jonathan was closing the window and Nancy was in his arms. A second later, Jonathan joined them.

When Steve was done kissing them, he said, "While I _very_ much approve, what if someone sees the ladder?" 

Jonathan asked, "How often do your parents go in the backyard in the middle of the night?"

"Never," Steve admitted. "They hardly ever use the pool either, even though it costs a fortune to heat."

"Let's go to bed," Nancy said, and Steve noticed that her eyes were a little bloodshot, like she'd been crying.

Steve thought they'd probably go to sleep, but after Jonathan turned off the light, Nancy found Steve's lips with hers. The three of them crowded together in Steve's bed. Everything was close and quiet, hot, tight, breathless, good. It took Steve out of his worries and right into sleep before the afterglow faded.

He woke up to a faint, unfamiliar beeping sound. On the other side of the bed, someone stirred, getting out of bed and rustling around in the pre-dawn darkness. When Steve made a questioning noise, soft footsteps came around to his side of the bed. Jonathan whispered, "I'm going to get Nancy home. Go back to sleep."

"Okay," Steve replied with a yawn, but he got out of bed and helped first Nancy, then Jonathan climb down the ladder. Jonathan took the ladder with them when they left, leaving Steve to replace the screen and close his window. This was going to suck when the weather turned colder.

For the millionth time in the past two days, Steve cursed the new order of things. His parents didn't know what he'd been through. They didn't know how much he needed Nancy and Jonathan. How could they? They couldn't even stand each other half the time. How could they understand not really being able to breathe unless their other halves were in the room?

Steve didn't think he would, but he fell back asleep, only waking again when the sun was up and his mother knocked on his door.

~*~

As Jonathan got home, he still couldn't believe his mother had let him leave last night to go spend the night with his boyfriend. Her rule before summer was that she needed to know his location, and would prefer that he sleep at home. After Jonathan had explained the situation with Steve's parents, she'd said, "I'm not going to condone you helping Steve break his parents' rules." She gave Jonathan a bit of a smile. "But if you're not in your bed tonight, I will have a good idea of where you might be."

Jonathan had kissed her cheek and called Nancy to tell her to be ready. From his room, Will had made exaggerated gagging noises.

Now Jonathan was awake too early, but not early enough to bother going back to sleep. He showered and made breakfast, then woke up his mom. "Hey, can you take Will to school? Mrs. Dayton said I could use the dark room before school today."

Blinking groggily in the lights, Joyce nodded and patted Jonathan's arm. "Yeah, of course. I know you've been shooting all summer without developing."

"Thanks!" Jonathan kissed his mother goodbye and gathered up his things. 

The side door of the school was always open earlier than the other doors, for things like early swim and band practices, and the occasional teacher who left their keys at home. Jonathan slipped into the school and headed straight to the darkroom. There was one negative in particular that he wanted to get a look at, along with about a million others than he knew he wanted to print.

He processed the first roll of film, fixing and rinsing it before looking at the images through the enlarger. The photo he was looking for was near the end of the roll, and he got the gist of it from the negative. Still he couldn't help himself. He projected it onto paper and developed the image.

It was a picture of Steve, illuminated mostly in silhouette by the by the sun falling through Jonathan's window. He'd been laughing at something Nancy had said, and there was something about the sight that Jonathan had found irresistible. The photo, once printed, captured most of what Jonathan had seen that day. 

The composition and lighting of the photo were almost technically flawless. Jonathan wished he could have submitted it for his photography class. Except, the way the photo depicted Steve was too intimate. Too loving. Lonnie and anyone like him would probably kill Jonathan for taking this picture.

Or for keeping it.

Sadly, Jonathan tore up the photograph and threw away the pieces. He'd keep the negative. Maybe someday, when he and Steve and Nancy were away from this place, Jonathan would print another copy.

A copy to keep.

A copy to frame.

~*~

Nancy was marking up an essay that Steve had written during study hall earlier, sitting in a booth seat, drinking the milkshake Steve had made for her. When the door opened, Nancy looked up and was mortified to see Fred Harrington entering the soda shop. Nancy ducked down, hiding behind her hand and her sweater and her milkshake, hoping Mr. Harrington hadn't seen her. Honestly, she'd only met the man once, almost a year previous, when she and Steve had still been publicly dating. Maybe he wouldn't remember what she looked like.

"Dad!" Steve cried from behind the counter, sounding as thrown-off as Nancy felt. "What are you doing here?'

"I came to buy a soda from my son," he said, sounding every bit the proud father. Nancy snidely wondered how proud he could be when he'd barely remembered Steve's existence over the summer.

"Uh, sure," Steve gestured over his head to the menu. "What can I get you?"

As Fred decided on an order and Steve made it, Nancy tried even harder to sink into the floor. She covered up the essay, which was in Steve's handwriting and had his name on the top. Then she pulled her scarf out of her bag, and used that to kind of hide her face.

After his first sip of his soda, Mr. Harrington made a pleased noise. He paid Steve for the drink, and took it with him when he left. Steve cleared up a few dishes and served another customer before he joined Nancy at the booth, sitting across from her. "Phew," he sighed, smiling. "That was a close one!"

"Here's your essay back," Nancy said, sliding the paper over to him. "It's a lot better than the last one."

"Thanks," Steve said, brushing her hand with his fingers as he took it and looked it over. "A lot less red this time."

"I bet you'll get that grade you need."

"I hope so." Steve sighed. "If I get all As and Bs, I'm sure my parents will lay off a little."

"We can only hope." Nancy wanted to kiss Steve, but since they were in public she knew it would have to wait.

~*~

"Are you sure we have to go to this?" Jonathan asked, looking out through the windshield at Mr. and Mrs. Holland's house.

"Yes," Nancy told him. "They invited us for dinner. I think they want to talk to us about something."

Jonathan didn't point out that technically, they hadn't invited him, they'd invited Nancy. She'd asked if he could come along. Instead, he pointed. "Is that a For Sale sign in their yard?"

Nancy clenched her jaw. "Maybe it's for the neighbor's house."

Jonathan didn't see how it could be, since it was _right_ in the middle of the Hollands' front yard. He thought it better to assure Nancy, "Yeah. That has to be it." 

Dinner was an awkward affair. Mrs. Holland seemed more or less spaced-out. Jonathan recognized the signs from when his mom thought Will was dead. It was difficult to see again, more difficult than Jonathan realized it would be.

Mr. Holland, on the other hand, seemed more pissed off than anything else. Jonathan recognized that response as well. When Will had gone missing, Jonathan felt angry more often than he felt any other emotion. Mostly he'd felt angry at himself for not realizing Will was missing until the next morning. He'd felt angry with himself for not watching Will like he should have been. It was familiar and disconcerting to see that hopeless anger in someone else.

_Then_ Nancy asked about the For Sale sign and Mrs. Holland started gushing about this Murray Baumann guy. Jonathan took the business card Mr. Holland showed him, cognizant of the way Nancy was a virtual statue beside him. 

"We're going to find our Barb!" Mrs. Holland said with such desperate hope that Jonathan wasn't surprised when Nancy excused herself abruptly.

"I think you should have that," Jonathan told Mr. Holland, handing back the business card. He stood up, setting his napkin on his plate, and told Barb's parents, "I think I should…" before he followed after Nancy. 

The water in the bathroom down the hall from the kitchen sounded like it was running, so Jonathan tapped on the door. "Hey. It's me."

The door opened and Nancy pulled him in, closing the door behind him and throwing herself into his arms. It had been awhile since he'd seen Nancy break down like this, and honestly it scared him. She was one of the most stable people Jonathan knew, but he was coming to learn that even stable people had their breaking points.

Barb's death was one of Nancy's few breaking points.

"It's killing me," Nancy said, and for a brief flash of a second, he wondered if she meant the guilt or if she meant something a little _stranger_. "Not being able to tell them the _truth_? They're going to ruin their lives looking for her, and we both know they're not going to find her." 

It was the guilt, then. "Oh," Jonathan said to Nancy in a whisper, holding her close and rubbing her back. "I'd think they already consider their lives ruined. They're just looking for answers."

"That's not helpful, Jonathan," Nancy snapped, pulling away from Jonathan, but letting him draw her back with a gentle tug.

"I'm sorry," he said, ducking a little to meet Nancy eye-to-eye. "What do you want to do? You know we can't tell them what actually happened."

"They deserve the truth, Joanthan. Those– those people… they owe Barb's parents the truth!" Nancy's eyes went wide and Jonathan was reminded of when she decided to kill the monster. “We’re going to make them tell the truth.”

Jonathan thought he should have seen this coming, but he was blindsided all the same. “Wh-what? How?”

“I don’t have all the pieces figured out yet,” she told Jonathan, squeezing his arms and sniffling. “But you’ll help me, right? You’ll help me?”

God damn it. He wanted to tell Nancy that he couldn’t do it. There was no way he could just ignore all those consequences the men in the suits had explained if they were caught telling other people what they knew. Those consequences would take him away from his mom and brother. Away from Steve. He couldn’t do it. 

Except he was weak. The hope in Nancy’s eyes, the look like she was finally expecting the end to a year’s worth of pain, it got to him. It made Jonathan weak, like Lonnie always said he was. He showed his weakness when he nodded. “Yeah, okay. I’ll help. Maybe we could just finish dinner first?”

“Dinner. Right.” Nancy nodded and turned to look at herself in the mirror. She used a tissue from the box on the counter to fix her make up a little, then she turned to Jonathan. “Let’s go back to dinner.”

Jonathan made a mental note to ask Steve if he was ever this stupid around Nancy, or if it was only him. 

~*~

The nice thing about his job, Steve thought, was that it got him out of dinner with his parents three nights a week. He didn’t have as much time to hang out with his friends, but given that he didn’t have all that many friends anymore, and that he wasn’t allowed to see his two closest friends, maybe the job didn’t impact him that much. 

He wasn’t expecting to get home after closing the shop and cleaning everything up, to find his parents waiting for him. They were sitting in the living room, next to a crackling fire (the October weather had turned suddenly chilly). Harriet read a magazine, while Fred sat reading one of those books about history that he loved so much. When he came in, they both looked up, and Fred called out to him. “Steven! We’d like to talk to you.”

_Oh, here we go._

Steve went to the living room, standing with his back to the fire. “What’s going on?”

Harriet looked to Fred, who put down his book and sat back in his chair. “Steven. Your mother and I met with some of your teachers today.”

_Right. Parent-teacher conferences. That was a thing happening today_. 

“And?”

“They say you’re doing pretty well, sweetheart!” Harriet said, getting up out of her chair and giving Steve a hug. He couldn’t remember the last time one of his parents had hugged him. 

“Well enough, in fact,” Fred added, standing up as well, but not moving close enough to actually _hug_ Steve, “that we’ve decided you’ve earned a reprieve. You may leave unsupervised on non-school nights.” 

Steve almost staggered with relief. It wasn’t everything he could have wanted, but it was something at least. It meant having actual, real time with Nancy and Jonathan again. 

“We also understand that Halloween is coming up,” Harriet told him, putting a comfortable distance between them. “You can go out that night too, as long as you get to class on time the next morning.”

“Wow,” Steve thought, thinking about the flier he didn’t take from Tina that afternoon, thinking there was no way he could go. “Um, thank you!”

“Thank yourself, buddy.” Steve didn’t think he’d ever heard Fred use the word “buddy” before. “You earned it.”

Steve wanted to ask about the ban on seeing Jonathan and Nancy in particular, but he didn’t want to risk losing what he already had by asking for too much. What was the saying? Beggars can’t be choosers. 

Wanting to get out of there before he ruined what was undoubtedly a good thing, Steve gave his parents a grateful nod and escaped up to his room. He wanted so badly to call Nancy or Jonathan or both of them and tell them the good news, but he didn’t have his own line. His parents would be able to eavesdrop and listen to the whole thing. They’d be able to take away what little freedom they’d just granted him. 

Like hell was Steve going to do _that_. He’d spent the last six weeks being good. He could do it a few more months, right? It was only five more until he turned eighteen. 

Jesus Christ, five whole months? And all he’d earned back so far was weekends? It was a start, but no way in hell did it feel fair. He told himself he’d also earned good grades and about three hundred bucks that Joyce was holding for him. That was about a tenth of the way to a decent used car. Maybe a third of what he would need for a junker. 

The problem was that basketball tryouts started in a few weeks. If Steve wanted to be on the team, he’d have to cut back to working only on weekends. He’d be working those same weekends that his parents had just given back to him. 

_Fuck._

He angrily did his homework, not really caring about much other than whether it was done or not. Then Steve went to bed, turning off the light. He fretted until he fell asleep, waking up no more than an hour later, drenched in sweat and reeling from his dream. It was that same one again. The monster crawled out of the ceiling and dropped onto him, holding him down and dripping slime as it decided whether or not to eat him. 

Even more pissed off once the fear faded, Steve rolled out of bed and turned on the little lamp on his nightstand. He peeled off his wet pajamas, shivering in the cold air. Always a perfect example of hypocrisy, his dad kept a heated pool during the winter, but never failed to turn down the thermostat at night. Frozen to his bones, Steve scrambled into new pajamas and crawled back into his clammy bed. 

Checking his clock, he noticed that it was pretty late, later than Jonathan usually came over. Lately he’d been bringing Nancy only once every two or three nights. Steve loved Jonathan, he really did, but he missed Nancy. He always felt a little bit better when he could rest his head on her shoulder and let her run her fingers through his hair. Jonathan never had long nails perfect for scratching over Steve’s scalp. 

He thought about having an angry jerk-off session, but he wasn’t even in the mood for _that._

Really, he was in the mood to hit something. To smash something. To take a swing at someone and feel the thud of his fist against flesh. 

But what good would that do? Not enough to make picking a fight worth it. This realization made all the fight dribble out of Steve’s body, leaving him in a state of uncomfortable malaise. He knew he wasn’t sleeping until Jonathan showed up, so he sighed and did the only thing he could think of. 

Steve got his homework back out and started fixing it, working until he passed out from sheer exhaustion, still alone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nancy has a plan for finding out what happened to Barb, Jonathan worries about Will, and Steve has a run-in with the new guy at school.

Jonathan could tell Steve was pissed off from the first second he spotted him on the other end of the school hallway. When Steve walked right past him without even so much as meeting his eyes, Jonathan’s stomach dropped. He’d been hoping Steve’s anger was about something other than Jonathan not showing up the night before. 

_ Guess not. _

Just before the bell for first period rang, Jonathan tore a page out of one of his notebooks and wrote a quick explanation before shoving it into Steve’s locker and running to class. It wasn’t like Jonathan had stood Steve up on purpose. Will had an episode at the arcade the night before. Jonathan’s mom needed him to be at home, in case something else happened. 

Jonathan got the note back after second period. 

_ That blows. I hope he’s okay. I just missed you. _

Jonathan felt himself smiling as he read it, and when Nancy asked what he was reading, he passed it to her and finished switching out his things for third period.

Nancy shook her head and smirked too. "I don't think he actually realizes how nice he is. Especially compared to some of the…" she cleared her throat and walked with Jonathan as he started heading for class, "...around here." She gave Jonathan a look. "Are you sure you're okay to be here? Your family doesn't need you at home?"

"No," Jonathan insisted, taking Steve's note back from her and stuffing it in his pocket. "Mom even had Will go to school this morning. She'll probably take him to see that doctor today."

"The one at the lab?"

Oh, Jesus. Jonathan could see the wheels turning in Nancy's head. "Look, I know you want after him because of Barb's parents, but can it wait? I need him to find out what's wrong with my brother."

Nancy stopped at her classroom, pulling Jonathan into a hug. It was a nice gesture, more public than Nancy tended to be, until she whispered in Jonathan's ear, "What if he _is _ what's wrong with your brother? What if he's doing something that's making Will sick?"

As she let Jonathan go, Nancy raised her eyebrows, then darted into her class before he could call her out for being a crazy conspiracy theorist.

He had to sit in class, trying to ignore the question. What if whatever they were doing at the lab was making Will sick? What if more people were going to get sick? Would more parents spend their lifetimes not knowing what happened to their missing children? Could that monster come back?

Jonathan bit his tongue on all of these questions, waiting until he could talk to Nancy at lunch. The hallways were not secure enough for this sort of conversation. Honestly, he should probably wait until they were not in public _at all_, but that felt too far away.

He and Nancy sat at their regular table, nearby some of Nancy's friends, but not so close that Jonathan couldn't privately ask a question or five. Before he could utter one word, Steve sat down across from them, setting down his tray. "Hey, guys."

This had never happened before. It felt like the entire school turned to look at them.

"Steve?" Nancy asked with a polite, if scary, smile. "What are you doing?"

Steve didn't answer the question. Instead, he took a bite of his cafeteria sloppy joe and began talking while chewing. "So, the good news is that I've been sprung from jail on weekends and on Halloween." He swallowed before finishing his thought. "The bad news is that I'm still grounded on all the other school nights."

"Do you realize that everyone is whispering about you sitting with us?" Jonathan asked. Maybe "whispering" was being too polite. A dull roar was probably a more fitting description.

"What if someone tells your dad you were sitting with us?" Nancy asked.

"Fuck him," Steve said, taking another bite. "I'll tell him I was asking about a school project or something."

"And what will you tell your friends?" Jonathan warily took his sandwich out of his lunch bag, half afraid Steve's upending of the social order was about to lead to a fight. "They'll accuse you of being a freak."

Steve laughed, but it was the sort of laugh that made Jonathan's blood go cold. Steve pointed around the room. "Do you think I give a fuck what any of these shitheads think of me?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Jonathan saw Nancy clench her jaw. "You seemed to care a lot back in March."

Jonathan wasn't quite sure what Nancy was referring to, but the look on Steve's face meant it couldn't be good. March was back when Nancy and Steve "broke up." Jonathan was far from blameless in that whole matter, but it had worked out in the end.

At least Jonathan had _thought_ it had worked out. From his perspective it had. Jesus, he'd been too blind this whole time, hadn't he? Or at least too willing to look past that particular expression on Steve's face whenever anyone mentioned him breaking up with Nancy.

"Well, fuck me then, huh?" Steve asked, setting down his sandwich and ignoring the way both Nancy and Jonathan said his name. "Do you know how many people have offered to come over and hang out with me since I've been grounded?"

Jonathan could take a guess. "Besides us? None?"

"One," he said, holding up a single finger. "It was Chrissy Harper. She's a _sophomore_. She's practically a child."

"Jonathan and I were both sophomores when–" Nancy said, when Steve cut her off.

"Unh-uh! She's a sophomore, which is insulting enough on its own. More insulting is the attitude going around about me. Have you heard? 'Oh, there's Steve, he makes out with anyone. Or at least he _used to_. So sad to see what's become of him…" Steve shook his head, looking down at his lunch like he actually _believed _what people said about him. He should have known better than most that people said shit that wasn't true all the time.

"Steve," Jonathan said, very aware of how not alone they were. "You grew up. It's not a bad thing."

"I just…" Steve sighed, pushing his hair back away from his face. He met Jonathan's eye, then Nancy's. "I just want to hang out with you guys and I wanted to ask if we could crash Tina's party on Halloween and have some fun." He looked small all of a sudden and Jonathan ached to give him a hug. "You guys remember fun, right?"

"Summer was fun," Jonathan said, sure he wasn't giving too much away in public.

Nancy reached across the table, putting her hand on Steve's. "One night of fun might be good." She looked over at Jonathan. "Take our minds off everything."

Steve met Jonathan's eyes. "Oh, hey, man! How's your brother?"

"We-we don't know yet," he said, noticing they still had a bit of an audience, despite the way most of the kids had turned back to their own discussions. "Might know more tonight."

Steve nodded and picked at his lunch some more. He leaned closer and said, "It's Friday. Think your mom will mind if I come by tonight? I'd like to say hi."

"Yeah," Jonathan said with a careful smile. "I think that would be great. Test out your new freedom?"

"Exactly."

"Good," Nancy said, "because I'm starting to formulate a plan."

"A plan for what?" Steve asked.

Looking around the room and deciding it entirely too risky to say everything, Jonathan said, "We'll fill you in tonight."

~*~

“I don’t think you should do it,” Steve said, leaning back against Jonathan’s pillows like they were his own. Nancy was surprised at how much she’d missed the sight. “You don’t know that they’re tapping your phone.”

“You don’t know that they’re not,” Nancy insisted. “Those agents said they’d be watching us. They told us how much would be on the line if the secret got out.”

“So your big idea is to let the secret out?” Steve shook his head. “Nance, I love you, but…”

Nancy clenched her fists, trying her best to keep her cool, when all she really wanted to do was scream with frustration. If Jonathan has been in the room, she could have counted on him to help her if she did lose control and try to strangle Steve. Still, she wasn’t going to fault him for running to the store when his mother asked. 

“I just want them to admit that they killed her,” Nancy said. “I want to have proof. I don’t think it would be a great idea for the truth to get out to _everybody_, but who knows? Secrets and this country don’t have a very good history.”

“I barely passed history,” Steve said, and that was it. Nancy had had enough. She took the pillow Steve wasn’t laying on and hit him in the face with it. “Ow! Nancy! It’s my first night out and away from my house in ages, and you _hit _ me?”

“This is more important than just you!” she cried, before remembering that Joyce could probably hear her if she shouted. Lowering her voice, Nancy added, “This is more important than any of us. My friend deserves justice. Her parents deserve to know what happened to her. I’m not asking you to help. I’m just asking you not to stop me.”

Sitting up, Steve looked out the window at the last of the setting sun. He sighed, but eventually he said, “Sorry. I guess I _have _been a little absorbed in my own shit lately.” He held out his arms to Nancy and she let him pull her into a hug. “You ever get that thing where you think things are gonna go one way, but they don’t and it takes a while to deal with the differences?”

“Yeah,” Nancy told him, burying her face in his shoulder and trying not to cry. “Barb and I were supposed to graduate together.”

Steve held Nancy a little tighter, and his voice broke when he whispered, “Yeah, like that.”

When he didn’t follow up on the thought right away, Nancy started to wonder what, exactly, Steve was having a hard time coming to terms with. “Never thought you’d have a job during high school?”

Steve laughed. “Well, yeah. There’s that.” As he pulled back, Steve kept one of Nancy’s hands, looking down at and playing with her fingers as he spoke. “I used to be ‘King Steve’, you know. I was gonna be the top dog of the entire school this year. It was gonna be my time.”

“Things change,” Nancy told him, watching Steve’s profile. “You changed.”

"I used to like scary movies," Steve said, giving Nancy a sad smile. "Now I can't even stand the thought of being in a dark theater unless you or Jonathan is there to hold my hand. Talk about pathetic."

Wow. Nancy had known Steve had trouble sleeping since everything that had happened the year before. They all had. And Nancy couldn't say that she'd ever become a fan of scary movies after having lived one. But to be afraid of the dark theater itself? Nancy realized that she hadn't known Steve was this _deeply _affected.

"I'm sorry," she said, brushing her fingers over his cheek and kissing him. "I know you didn't ask to be part of any of this."

Steve scoffed. "Would anyone?"

"No," Nancy replied. "But neither did Barb or her parents. I'm not trying to make things harder on you or get you in trouble."

"I don't want you to get hurt," he admitted. "You or Jonathan. You guys are kinda my whole world at this point. I'm just really not eager to lose that."

"You won't," Nancy insisted, thinking about it for a moment. "And maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea to wait a few days. Get through Halloween. See if this private detective guy the Hollands hired stumbles across the truth."

"That…" Steve said, looking around at the floor like he was thinking it through. "That seems like a good compromise, Nancy. Thanks."

"Well," she said, rolling her eyes, even as she let Steve pull her close. "When a guy calls me his whole world, I…"

"Shut up," he said, but he was smiling. "It's more a comment on what a loser I am now, than a compliment for you. Ahh!" Steve shrieked a little when Nancy attacked him, digging in her fingers and tickling him. After all, she couldn't exactly let him walk back an actual, emotional confession without some sort of punishment, now could she?

~*~

Monday morning Jonathan parked in the school lot thirty minutes early. He shooed Will off toward his friends, similarly early to school for god-knows-what reasons, and then got into the backseat of Steve’s car. Jonathan leaned forward, putting his head between Nancy’s and Steve’s, and asked, “So what are we doing?”

“College applications are coming up,” Steve said, looking more than a little nervous. His nerves seemed to be directed at the paper in Nancy’s hands. Reading over her shoulder, Jonathan guessed it was some sort of admissions essay. “I’m not even sure I want to go right away next year. Not and leave you two behind.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Nancy said, her eyes still on the essay. “Anyone who wants to be anything goes to college.”

Jonathan licked his lips, trying not to feel excluded by the fact that neither of his parents went to college. Well, technically his dad had gone to trade school, but that wasn’t exactly the same thing. Jonathan always wanted to believe that he was different, that he’d get to go someplace big and exciting, like NYU. But between never quite having enough money to save any of it, and his grades being what they were when he had to prioritize work over studying, Jonathan knew NYU was a pipe dream. He’d be lucky to get into State. 

The look Steve gave Jonathan was full of worry, as well. No doubt he had similar worries about his own grades. Jonathan had spent a lot of time in the same room as Steve while they were studying the previous spring. Steve wasn’t exactly what anyone would call "diligent" or "careful" when it came to his school work. However, sometimes Jonathan got the feeling he was rushing through the work so they could get to making out instead. Jonathan couldn’t exactly say he wasn’t doing the same thing. 

In fact, since Steve had been grounded, Jonathan had been having an easier time getting his work done. He’d slept less, having to drive over to Steve’s and sneak in his window to be able to sleep well at all, but he’d spent more time on homework. His grades showed the difference.

“It’s actually pretty good,” Nancy said, smiling over at Steve. “You’ve been learning how to write better!”

“It just makes more sense when you explain it,” Steve told her. He was definitely blushing. “But is it good enough for the applications my parents are making me do?”

Ah. Here was an explanation of sorts. Steve wasn’t doing this of his own free will. Jonathan wondered how Steve was factoring in his plans to leave home as soon as possible with these new college plans. 

“Can I mark this?” Nancy asked, waiting for Steve’s nod before writing on the paper. 

Jonathan wasn’t really interested in the intricacies of the essay, so when an unfamiliar car with a loud engine and California plates passed by them, it drew his full attention. A girl, maybe around Will’s age, got out of the passenger side, skateboarding away toward the middle school. The driver stood up, smoking a cigarette with his jean jacket and his rockstar hair. He looked at least twenty, but he started walking toward the high school. 

“Oh, that guy’s trouble,” Jonathan said out loud, noticing the way Tina and Nicole had their eyes on him as they smiled and laughed. 

“Trouble is the last thing we need right now,” Nancy sighed, getting out of the car and standing up, watching the new guy go.

Jonathan couldn’t agree more. 

Trouble found them at lunch. Steve had been sitting with Jonathan and Nancy every day for just over a week. The novelty had started to fade and people just sort of accepted Steve’s self-demotion in the social order of the school. Until someone new was added to the mix. 

Jonathan saw the new guy headed their way before the others did. Nancy and Steve were going through the classifieds in the paper, looking for a car Steve could afford, so they had their heads down. 

“Guys,” Jonathan said, trying to get their attention. When it didn’t work, he kicked Steve under the table. “Guys!”

“Jesus, Jonathan!” Steve cried, looking up at him with an overdramatic, betrayed expression. “What?”

Jonathan nodded over Steve’s shoulder. Thankfully, Steve got the hint and turned around. As if he could sense how dangerous this guy was just as much as Jonathan could, Steve stood up, meeting him eye-to-eye. 

The new guy stood a little bit too close, saying, “Steve Harrington. Word is you’re the guy to beat if I want to make Captain of the basketball team.”

Putting his hands on his hips, Steve said, “Try-outs start on the first. And Coach _always _picks two captains.”

“What’d you do to get him to pick a Junior last year?” the guy asked, tucking his curly hair back behind his earring-decorated ear. “Blow him?”

Steve laughed, but Jonathan could see how tensely he was holding himself. “Why? Is that what you did to get ahead at your old school?”

The guy balled up his fist, and Jonathan was out of his seat and at Steve’s shoulder before he consciously made the decision to move. The new guy didn’t start swinging, but he did nod toward Jonathan. “Who’s your boyfriend?”

“That’s Jonathan,” Steve said, without looking back at all, like he knew it would be Jonathan backing him up. He also didn’t argue the use of the term “boyfriend”, but Jonathan was pretty sure that had more to do with keeping a cool facade than an actual embrace of the term in public. “What do they call you?”

“Billy Hargrove,” he replied with a smirk, tucking his thumbs in his waistband, and waiting, maybe for a reaction, like any of them would have heard of him. When he didn’t get the reaction he must have been expecting, Billy cleared his throat. “The way people talk about you, Harrington, they make it seem like you’re the big man of the school. Top dog. And yet I find you over here hanging out with a couple of nerds.” He tilted his head. “I suppose the girl’s kinda cute. You doin’ her?”

The sneer on Billy’s face made Jonathan’s blood boil under his skin. He darted forward, and it was only Steve’s hand on his chest kept Jonathan from getting close enough to take a swing at Billy.

“Oh, ho!” Billy cried with a wide smile, like he’d just gotten what he’d wanted. He wanted a fight, didn’t he? “Guess it’s the sidekick doin’ her. For now.” He grinned at Nancy and it reminded Jonathan of a predator. A monster. His fists clenched.

“Fuck off, asshole!” Nancy cried, putting herself in front of Steve, who was still holding Jonathan back. She lowered her voice and hissed, “You come near any of us again and I will personally cut off your dick with a hunting knife.”

Jonathan winced a little bit at the threat, but Billy went _white_. He licked his lips and then muttered, “Fuck you, freak,” before sauntering away, like he hadn’t just lost that battle.

“Nancy,” Steve asked, now more holding onto Jonathan than holding him back, “would you really _do_ that?”

“Only if he tried to put his dick anywhere near me,” she replied with a sneer of disgust. She sat back down with the classifieds and asked, “Shall we continue?”

“Y-yeah,” Steve said, sparing a glance for where Billy was joining Tommy H. at the popular table.

There was a flash of wounded-animal danger on Billy’s face before he turned away, and Jonathan felt his hair stand on end. He seriously prayed that Nancy hadn’t poked a sleeping bear when it came to that guy and the violence he might be capable of.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Halloween party doesn't go as expected, and Nancy and Jonathan skip school without Steve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's some binge drinking and the sickness that goes along with it in this chapter, including induced vomiting, if anyone needs the warning.

“Come on, dance with me,” Nancy said to Jonathan, a happy smile on her face and a cup of punch in her hand. Jonathan thought it would be nice to try the punch, to be able to let go for once, but the smell of the alcohol had turned his stomach. It reminded him too much of the way Lonnie used go on a bender, come home, and blow chunks before he made it to the toilet. It reminded Jonathan of the way he’d clean up the hallway and the bathroom so his mom wouldn’t have to. 

Shaking his head, Jonathan said, “Nah. This isn’t my kind of music.”

“Spoil sport!” Steve swooped in, lifting Nancy up and spinning her around. “I’ll dance with you, babe!”

Nancy shrieked and laughed, but waited for a nod from Jonathan before letting Steve haul her off toward the recessed living room people were dancing in. 

While Jonathan watched them dance, someone at his side said, “Nice costume.”

It took Jonathan a few seconds to realize that the girl in the terrifying makeup was talking to him. He looked down at his average, everyday clothes and the jack o’ lantern pin Nancy had attached to his shirt. “Thanks,” he said with a sardonic smile. “I’m dressed as a guy who hates going to parties.”

She snorted a little laugh. “I’m Samantha.”

“Jonathan,” he told her. Pointing at her costume, he asked, “You’re dressed like from KISS? The band?”

“Only the best band of our lifetimes,” she insisted.

Jonathan thought about refuting that statement. Clearly there were better, more skilled, more influential bands out there. But it was Halloween, and she liked them well enough to come to a high school party dressed as a member. He decided it would be kinder to let her have her fun. “Okay!”

Samantha smiled at Jonathan and he knew he was about to be inundated with facts about her favorite band. It definitely beat trying to make conversation with any of these other assholes at the party, most of whom had never cracked open a book if it wasn't for a school assignment.

Then Jonathan's heart was in his throat, beating frantically before he consciously realized what had set it off. A girl was screaming. Jonathan turned, only to be suddenly, dizzyingly relieved when he realized it was just Nicole screaming after two jocks slipped ice down the back of her catsuit. When he turned back to Samantha, she was eyeing him suspiciously.

"Why are you so jumpy?"

"Excuse me," he said, leaving the conversation and heading for Nancy and Steve out on the dance floor. Better for Samantha to think him strange than to have to explain to her that he was still afraid of a monster that had been killed a year ago.

Jonathan only found Nancy. "Hey," he said, catching her and holding her still so he could speak into her ear. "Where'd Steve go?"

"To get a drink," she told him, holding Jonathan closer and swaying, like that was going to get him to dance. "Why?"

"Nevermind," he told her, not wanting to admit he was counting heads after being scared by something harmless. "How long do you think we should stay?"

Nancy pulled Jonathan close enough to speak into his ear. "We have to look like perfectly normal teenagers right up until we spring our trap, Jonathan. We can't leave after ten minutes." She backed off far enough that Jonathan could see her sweet-as-can-be smile. "And it's Steve's first night out in forever."

Jonathan didn't point out that two months wasn't forever. He supposed he could let Steve have some more fun. "I guess you're right."

Nancy hugged Jonathan close again, and the music changed to something slower. It was just at _stupid _as the song before, but slower. He gave in and let Nancy hold onto him and start the two of them swaying together. "Thank you for indulging me," she said, kissing Jonathan's cheek. "Without this plan, I know I'd have such a hard time facing this week."

Jonathan didn't have to ask what this week meant to her. November 6th was still emblazoned on Jonathan's mind as the date Will had gone missing. Barb had died during the time Will was gone. "Anniversaries are hard," he admitted, thinking the only other date that got to him so bad was the anniversary of the day Lonnie had left. Focusing on Nancy, Jonathan told her, "I'm sorry she's gone."

"Me too."

As they swayed together, Jonathan ended up facing the kitchen, and that's where he saw Tommy H. and that new kid, Billy, taunting Steve about something. 

"Oh, shit," he said, watching as Steve shouldered past them and went straight for a bottle of liquor. He twisted off the cap, saluted toward Tommy and Billy, and started chugging it straight.

"Jesus Christ!" Jonathan cried, getting himself loose from Nancy and snaking his way through the other party-goers. Nancy's hand on his wrist told Jonathan she was right behind him.

Cries of, "Chug! Chug! Chug!" sprang up around them and everyone watched as Steve finished the bottle before Jonathan could get to him.

"I'd like to see you beat _that_," Steve said, pointing at Billy. 

A chorus of "oooooh"s broke out around the room as everyone stopped what they were doing to watch this madness unfold.

"Stop!" Nancy cried out, pushing past Jonathan and grabbing Steve's wrist. "This pissing contest is going to kill someone!"

"Him first," Steve said, already starting to sway a bit on his feet.

"You wish, Harrington," Billy sneered, but he turned away from the stand-off first.

Jonathan helped Nancy drag Steve out of the kitchen. "We have to get that out of his system."

"Was that as much as I thought it was?" she asked, getting under Steve's arm to help keep him upright.

"It was…" Steve said, lurching on his feet until Jonathan caught him, "a _lot_."

"You have to throw up," Jonathan told him, steering them all into a bathroom. "Otherwise we have to take you to the hospital."

"Have _you _ever drank that much?" Steve asked before making a face. "My throat burns! Why does my throat burn?"

"I've seen my dad drink enough. I'm not in any hurry to follow in his footsteps," Jonathan replied.

"Here," Nancy said, shoving a toothbrush into Steve's hand. "Stick that in your throat."

"You guys are mean," Steve said, but he took the toothbrush and followed Nancy's orders.

It wasn't pretty, but when it was over, at least Jonathan didn't have to worry about Steve having to go to the hospital. The three of them sat on the bathroom floor, Jonathan on Steve's right side and Nancy on his left. 

"Why did you do that?" Jonathan asked.

"I dunno," Steve said, leaning so his head was on Jonathan's shoulder. "It's stupid. Billy broke my kegstand record. He's going to break all my basketball records, too."

"Have you ever even seen him play?" Nancy asked, folding Steve's hand into her own.

"Don't have to," Steve said. "Haven't been sleeping. Not good for top–" he yawned. "Top performance."

"We should get out of here," Jonathan told the others, pretty sure none of them were having a good time at this point. "We can go to my place. I'll drop you guys off before I have to go get Will."

"'Bout my car?" Steve asked, a heavy weight when Jonathan lifted him to his feet.

Jonathan insisted, "We'll get it in the morning." He shared a look with Nancy and he hoped like hell this wasn't going to be the first incident in a string of many. Jonathan wasn't ready to live through that again.

~*~

When Steve woke up, he had to pee so bad he couldn't think of anything else. It was only as he was leaving the bathroom that he realized he was at Jonathan's house, not his own.

Shit, and it was a school day, wasn't it? Noticing he was still dressed except for his shoes and jacket, Steve opted to head for the kitchen to find something to drink. 

Joyce was there, sitting at the table, drinking a cup of coffee. "Morning, Steve."

"Hey, Mrs. Byers," he said, and it felt different than it had over the summer. Still, Steve helped himself to a cup of coffee (with plenty of milk and sugar) and sat down with her. "You okay?"

The question seemed to startle Joyce out of a daydream. She met Steve's eyes and gave him a sad sort of smile. "Oh, I'll be okay. How's the hangover?"

"Is it that obvious?" he asked, wincing.

"Only to the trained eye," she replied with a wink. "I think I remember washing some clothes of yours a few weeks back. They're probably still in Jonathan's room if you wanted to clean up a bit before you go home."

Steve realized that although his own mother did his laundry all the time, she was never sweet about it like this. God, he missed living here so much it _hurt_. How was he supposed to survive five more months of _this_?

"Thanks, Mrs. B," Steve said with as much sincerity as he could muster. It occurred to him that from what he knew about Mr. Byers, it was his drinking that played a big part in the divorce. Unable to stand the thought that Joyce would think of him in that way, he told her, "Don't worry. The hangover is a one-time thing. _Never_ again."

Joyce let out a surprised, and maybe somewhat relieved laugh. "Okay. Make sure it is. You know how I … worry." The far-off look came back and Steve wondered if she was thinking about Will. He knew they'd had to take him to the doctor that week.

If it had still been summer, Steve would have felt like he was family enough to ask. It wasn't, so he didn't. He just gave Joyce another smile and went back to Jonathan's room in search of some clean clothes.

~*~

As Nancy ate the last few bites of her lunch, Steve said, “Oh, hey. Basketball try-outs are tonight. Either one of you want to come watch?”

“We can’t,” Nancy blurted out, realizing after she’d let the words escape that she’d said them too urgently. She shared a look with Jonathan. Tonight was the night the two of them were going to put her plan into action. The last time Nancy had mentioned the plan to Steve, he had tried to convince her not to go through with it. He was too scared. Too affected by everything that had happened. In too much trouble with his parents to understand why Nancy couldn't put it off any longer.

She couldn't let him use all those things as reasons to hold off on going through with it. She couldn't let Steve be part of the plan anymore. (And maybe she _was _a little nervous about going ahead with it.) She couldn't let him know what she and Jonathan were going to do, at least not until it was already done.

Clearing her throat, Nancy said, “Sorry. We both have this project due tomorrow. For…” Shit, why couldn’t she remember what classes she and Jonathan had in common? There had to be something… “History!”

“Big History project,” Jonathan added easily, like Nancy hadn’t just made up the lie. Although they hadn't discussed leaving Steve out of the plan, he must have seen the same cracks in Steve's behavior that she had. They had to keep Steve out of it.

Steve pouted at Nancy over the lunch table. "What about coming over tonight? After you guys finish?"

"After we finish could work," she said, knowing that the bulk of their plan didn't start until the following morning. There were still a few details to go over, and Nancy wasn’t sure she could really relax until everything was set. Actually, she probably wouldn’t relax until the plan was over. Steve would figure out something was up. “It might be a really late night.”

“That’s fine,” Steve said, tapping his shoe against Nancy’s and smiling. “You know I don’t sleep, like, at all, if you guys aren’t there. Come by whenever you can.”

Nancy felt like shit. Like the worst girlfriend alive. She gave Steve a smile in return. 

~*~

Just as he thought might happen, Steve was having a hard time keeping up at tryouts. Being a little hungover still didn't help. Neither did thinking that Nancy and Jonathan had been acting weird at lunch. He hadn't seen them after school either. What the hell was going on?

Billy Hargrove, who Steve noticed was getting away with penalties no one else could have gotten past Coach, knocked Steve down for the third time. He offered Steve a hand up, only to pull close – far too close – and hiss, "You've got to plant your feet, Harrington. You keep moving them around, I'm gonna keep making you my bitch."

Then Billy let Steve drop back to the floor. Annoyed, Steve got back to his feet and did his best trying to keep up. With this asshole on the team, there was no way any college recruiters would look Steve's way. Maybe it was just as well. Steve was starting to think college wasn’t the right move for him anyway. 

As practice wound down, Coach called Steve over and asked him quietly, "Everything alright, son?"

"Yeah," Steve lied. "Sure. What would be wrong?"

"New player going out for the team." Coach crossed his arms and looked past Steve with narrowed eyes. "He's damn fast, but absolutely no sense of sportsmanship."

"Yeah, I got that impression," Steve agreed, wiping some of the sweat off his forehead with his towel. 

"The boys will follow a great player," Coach said and Steve's heart sank momentarily. Then Coach added, "But not if he's an asshole."

Steve watched the rest of the team file toward the locker room and noticed how Tommy and Sean interacted with Billy, but no one else did. "I suppose that's true."

"I have found, over the years," said Coach, "that what really makes a good team captain is confidence. And, well, son? I'd like to know where yours went."

Steve felt gutted, but Coach was right. He had lost some of the confidence he'd had before. Maybe most of it. For a while afterward, it had been easy to fake it. But then summer happened and Steve hadn't needed to fake _anything _while living at Jonathan's place. He'd gotten out of the habit, and lost the knack of it. Now he was letting jackasses like Billy Hargrove push him around? 

_ Fuck_.

Steve had been silent for a long few moments as he thought this through, unable to come up with any particular thing he could tell Coach had led to his loss of confidence. 

"Well, whatever it was, I need you to get over it, son." Coach sighed, putting a hand on Steve's shoulder. "Go out, get a new girlfriend or something, come back on Monday with a better attitude. Hargrove might be good, but games are won by the whole team, Harrington. Buck up, snap out of it, and lead your team to glory."

A year ago, Steve knew Coach's words would have inspired him. They would have got his blood up and filled him with excitement and anticipation for the next game they'd win. 

Now the words just seemed _empty _and _meaningless_. Glory? Over a high school basketball game? What good would it do to win a stupid game? What lives would it save? 

Still, people had expectations of him. Steve's parents had expectations of him. If he just let basketball, a sport he used to love playing, slip away from him, meeting those expectations was going to get so much harder.

Being allowed to _sleep _would get so much harder, if it meant restricted access to Jonathan and Nancy again. Like hell was he going to let _that _happen.

Working up his best impression of the old Steve, the confident Steve, the Steve who cared about what Coach thought of him, Steve said, "Yes, sir!"

"Alright," Coach said with a satisfied nod, pleased by Steve's act. "Go get cleaned up, son. Our first game is in two short weeks!"

"Yes, sir!" The lying, happy tone fell easier from Steve's lips the second time, and he escaped. As he jogged toward the locker room, he wondered what Coach would think if he knew one of the people Steve was in love with was another boy. He wouldn't be considering Steve for team captain, that's for sure. What would everyone else think? No way in hell would they understand.

Except, as Steve remembered the way Billy had pulled Steve far too close to trash talk him, there was something there Steve thought he recognized. He was probably very wrong about that. Billy was a crazed meathead obsessed with being the top dog, obsessed with being King of the school, obsessed with fucking and then dumping as many girls as would let him get away with it. Just because Steve used to be a little like that, used to use people for what they could get him, used to search through people before he knew what he actually wanted? None of that meant Billy was like him. None of that meant Billy would do what Steve used to do and confuse attraction for annoyance or hatred. None of that meant BIlly was hiding something vulnerable, a weakness that could destroy him if anyone found out about it, behind meanness and false confidence.

Nah, he was just a dickhead. Plain and simple.

When Steve got to the showers, the only open one was next to Billy and Tommy. Fantastic. Thinking there was no way he was going to let those two assholes drive him away from anything else, he pretended he was the confident Steve from a year ago and moved in.

As Steve worked shampoo through his hair, Billy said, "Hey, don't sweat it, Harrington! Today just wasn't your day."

"Thanks," Steve said dryly, not bothering to look over at Billy.

"Poor Steve," said Tommy with that ugly laugh of his. Why hadn't Steve noticed how ugly that laugh was before? It had probably gotten worse since Carol's parents sent her away over the summer. "Still pining after that Wheeler chick. Just exactly how good is she in the sack to make Steve Harrington follow her around like a lost puppy all these months later? What did she do to turn you into such a bitch?"

There was no way Steve was going to let Tommy H. of all people goad him into talking about Nancy that way. He kept his mouth shut.

"Is it true?" asked Billy with a laugh almost as ugly as Tommy's. "I heard the chick cheated on you with a loser freak and you just keep going back for more. I think me and Tommy both need to find out what's so special about this girl. What, is her pussy made of gold or something?"

Laughing like a hyena, Tommy chimed in. "Jones told me she and Byers, that pervert, skipped after lunch. No one's seen them all afternoon. I bet they left to go get freaky with each other."

Okay, that got to Steve, but not the way Tommy wanted it to. He looked at Tommy, trying to find out if he was telling the truth or just giving Steve shit. But if he was making it up, why would he bring Jones in on it?

"Too bad," Billy said with another mocking laugh. "Oh well. Plenty of fish left in the sea." Billy leaned closer and shut off Steve's shower head. "I'll be sure to leave some for you."

The arrogance think in Billy's voice was insulting, and it took all of Steve's self-control to avoid picking a fist fight with him.

When Nancy and Jonathan didn't show up that night, he tried to tell himself they'd just fallen asleep working on their project. When he couldn't find either one of them the next day, he started to worry. After school, Steve used the pay phone at the front of the school to call Nancy's house. Her mom said she was staying with Ally that night and that she'd tell Nancy he called.

No one picked up at Jonathan's house. Something was wrong. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nancy and Jonathan enlist some help putting her plan into motion, while Steve tries to give Dustin some advice.

Jonathan thought (as Dr. Sam Owens released him and Nancy back into the civilian world after showing them a wide-open rift in the universe) that Nancy’s plans had a habit of working too well and scaring the shit out of him. First the monster last year, and now this. He could barely drive, his hands were shaking so bad. Nancy seemed more thrilled or excited than scared, and he had to face the very real possibility that his girlfriend was actually insane. 

“You’re sure you want to do this?” Jonathan asked as they left the Hawkins city limits, headed west. 

Nancy looked back at Jonathan, the expression in her eyes intense and no, not at all almost as scary as that gateway or whatever it was. “Let’s burn that lab to the ground.”

By the time they got to Chicago, it was late, too late to carry out the next step of Nancy’s plan. “We’re going to have to get a room,” Jonathan told her, pointing up the road. “What about that place?”

Nancy didn’t even look before saying in a distracted tone, “Sure.”

He hoped like hell this place was cleaner than it looked from the outside. He parked, then followed Nancy as she led the way to the motel office. The lady behind the desk was watching television, and didn’t acknowledge their presence until Nancy said, “Excuse me. We’d like a room?”

“We’ve got those,” she said, finally sparing them a glance. God, Jonathan hoped they didn’t look as young as he suddenly felt. “Single or Double?”

“Single,” Jonathan said in unison with Nancy. At least they were on the same page when it came to sleeping arrangements. 

The bed was about the same size as the one Jonathan had at home, but somehow less comfortable. It wasn’t nearly as comfortable as Steve’s bed, and not for the first time, Jonathan regretted not asking Steve to come with. Burying his nose in Nancy’s hair, he whispered, “Do you miss him as much as I do?”

Nancy cleared her throat before whispering back, “Yeah.”

“We should have brought him with. It’s Friday night. His parents won’t miss him until Sunday.”

“He had basketball tryouts again tonight,” Nancy replied. “And I’m not exactly sure he would have come with in the first place. You didn’t hear him when I tried to explain the plan.”

Jonathan wanted to ask Nancy whether it really would have been so bad if they had just let Steve know where they were going. “He’s going to think we ditched him.”

“He can survive one night without us.”

Jonathan wasn’t so sure that was true. Sure, he hadn’t sneaked into Steve’s room every single night for the past two months, but it had probably been most of them. It had been many more nights than Nancy had agreed to come along with him. And she slept better than either of them. She probably hadn't noticed the way Steve was always awake when they got there, no matter how late. She couldn't know that Steve slept restlessly when she wasn't there, that he only slept still when Jonathan put an arm over him and held him down.

Maybe Steve would survive one night, but several would be pushing it.

~*~

After the second round of tryouts on Friday evening, Steve drove around looking for Jonathan's car. He couldn't find it, or them, anywhere.

He didn't sleep until the sun came up. He barely woke up in time for his one o'clock shift at the soda shop. If anyone was at the Byers house, they still weren't picking up.

When the power went out at the soda shop – in the whole downtown area as far as Steve could tell – and still hadn't come back on half an hour later, Joanie sent Steve home. His disappointment at only getting paid for two hours of an eight hour shift was quickly overshadowed by the realization that he had most of his Saturday evening back.

Steve got into his car and drove to Nancy's, hoping she'd be back from Ally's house and willing to help him look for Jonathan. Surely she was smart enough to come up with places to look that Steve wouldn't think of. Hell, if he found Jonathan there too, maybe everything was okay. Maybe Nancy would let Steve take a nap in her bed. God knew he needed it.

When he got to the Wheeler house, that Dustin kid was at the front door, talking to Mr. Wheeler. Weird. All Mike's friends usually went in through the back door directly into the basement. 

The weirdness of the sight brought back Steve's uneasiness. The frustrated panic on Dustin's face when he turned away from the house didn't help. Steve got out of his car and headed toward the house, only for Dustin to call out to him, "If you're looking for Nancy, she's not here."

"She's not…" Steve looked up at the house, and at Mr. Wheeler closing the door. "She was supposed to be back by now."

"She's been at Ally's since yesterday," Dustin told Steve with a huff. "Though no one seems to be where I need them to be today."

"Tell me about it," Steve muttered. It only struck him now how weird it would be for Nancy to be over at Ally's. Sure, Ally was her friend, but they weren't nearly as close as they used to be. Barb's death had kind of blown up that whole friend group. Why would Nancy go to Ally's without even telling him about it?

Dustin struggled with his bike, trying to get it upright. "Mike is supposed to be over at Will's house, but no one over there is picking up the phone, and I have…" He threw his bike back down. "A CODE RED EMERGENCY!"

Oh, shit. Steve didn't like the sound of that. Maybe it was just stupid middle school drama, and not what Steve feared it might be. Hoping he was wrong, Steve asked, "And by code red, you mean…?"

Instead of answering the question, Dustin gave Steve an assessing look, which was more than a little creepy coming from a kid. "Do you still have that bat? The one with the nails in it?"

"In my car," Steve told him, getting a really bad feeling about this. 

"Get in," Dustin told him, hurrying toward Steve's car. He called out over his shoulder, "Come on! Let's go!"

~*~

When Jonathan and Nancy finished telling Murray Bauman the whole story, he just sat there wordlessly. Jonathan couldn't help but worry about the scary government guys coming to find them and do all the terrible things they'd promised to do if they told anyone about what had happened to Barb. Jonathan also couldn't help but also worry a bit about the fact that when he'd called home to check in that morning, no one had picked up the phone.

No one had picked up last night, either. He hoped that didn't mean what he thought it meant. He thought it meant something bad. 

When Murray woke up out of his stupor, they made a plan. Together they made copies of a letter containing the watered-down story of Hawkins Lab, they made copies of Nancy's tape recording, and they addressed envelopes to every major news outlet in the country. By the time they finished, it was almost midnight. Murray tried to offer Joanthan a drink, but he declined, insisting, "I have to drive."

"Surely you can't drive all the way back to Hawkins tonight," Murray said. "Why don't the two of you take my guest room? Leave in the morning."

"I suppose it is getting late," Nancy said, looking to Jonathan.

He shrugged. They'd already been gone so long. He'd been unable to get anyone on the phone at his house. They hadn't told Steve where they were going. Jonathan wasn't sure that Nancy's story getting out there was worth all this trouble. But yet again, he couldn't say no to her, either. "We could stay. If you want."

Nancy looked at Jonathan for a long moment and he could feel her reading his face. He wondered what she saw, because even he couldn't put a finger on everything he was feeling.

Turning back to Murray, Nancy said, "Okay. We'll stay."

Now Murray was looking at both of them in turn, making Joanthan uneasy. "What am I seeing here?" Murray asked, pointing back and forth between the two of them. "What is this?"

"Wh-what do you mean?" asked Nancy, sharing a bewildered look with Jonathan. 

"The two of you, the way you interact is strange," he said, leaning forward in his seat and resting, face-in-hand, elbow-on-knee. "It's almost like...it's almost like you're making room for someone else. You don't have a kid, do you?"

"No!" Jonathan cried at the same time as Nancy. He added, "We're only seventeen." Well, technically Nancy was still sixteen for another month, but close enough.

"That is a little young," Murray agreed. He frowned. "Who is it that we're leaving room for?"

Jonathan noticed Nancy move closer to him, as if defying Murray's observation.

Murray pointed at Jonathan. "You're easy to figure out. Daddy-slash-abandonment issues. Abused, probably. That's what led to your need to please everyone all the time."

Jonathan made a noise of indignance, but Murray just moved onto Nancy. "You. You're more difficult to figure out. You're restless, uneasy, like you want everything and hate it as soon as you get it. _Especially _when you get it too easily. Don't go looking for trouble, young lady. I'm sure you'll find enough of it once you're out from under mommy and daddy's shadow."

"I'm not–" Nancy argued, glancing at Jonathan. "I don't go looking for trouble!"

"Well…" Jonathan said, raising his eyebrows at her. He held up his palm, the one that still held the scar from the cut he'd given himself a year ago. "You kind of do."

Nancy made an aggravated noise, holding her own scarred hand close to her chest. Murray laughed.

"My, my. How does a meek fellow like yourself handle a woman like this?" he asked Jonathan.

What an insulting insinuation. Jonthan insisted, "I don't!" He turned to Nancy. "I wouldn't…"

"Ah!" Murray cried out, holding up a finger. "I've got it. I know who's missing! It's not a child. It's a boyfriend!" He giggled in delight, looking back and forth between Nancy's shocked expression and Jonathan's. "Well? What's his name?"

"Steve," Jonathan supplied, catching Nancy's hand when she tried to give him a gentle tap of admonishment.

"Oh, Steve!" Murray's voice was full of false saccharine sweetness. "We love Steve!" He looked at Jonathan again, and sat back a bit. "Oh! We _both _love Steve! How interesting!"

"You can't–!" Nancy cried, moving between Murray and Jonathan. "You can't tell anyone!"

"Oh, don't worry, pumpkin." He leaned all the way back in his chair and spread his arms, as if to appear harmless. They all knew at this point he could be anything but harmless. "I came of age during the sixties. The age of Aquarius? The era of free love? I am in _no _position to judge."

Jonathan's imagination supplied him with a few _very _unwelcome mental images.

"What I'd like to know is why we didn't bring Steve on our little adventure?"

"He would have stopped us," Jonathan admitted, ducking another of Nancy's swats.

"Not as interested in the truth, is our Steve? Does he even know about all this-this _madness_? The monsters and whatnot?"

"Yes!" Nancy said, pulling closer to Jonathan defensively. "He knows."

"He's the reason we survived it." Jonathan didn't know why he said that, but he felt better having said it aloud.

Murray's face lit up like a Christmas tree. "Oh! The real shit! Shared trauma. No wonder we fell in love with _Steve_. Our big, strong protector!"

"He's more than that," Nancy insisted, and she looked like she was starting to get genuinely upset with Murray's teasing.

Murray must have seen it too, because he backed off, saying sincerely, "I'm sure he is." He stood up and headed for the stairs. "The guest room is right through there. I'll see you lovebirds in the morning." He took a few steps up before calling back, "But maybe give a little thought to why we make room for Steve between us, but we still lie to him. Doesn't seem sustainable to me!"

The door at the top of the stairs opened and then slammed shut. 

"We shouldn't have lied to Steve," Nancy murmured.

"We shouldn't have," Jonathan agreed. "We'll call him in the morning." 

"We'll go find him when we get back home."

Jonathan stood up, offering his hand to Nancy. Murray was right. They did leave space for Steve. Even curled up close together on the guest bed a few minutes later, they ended up more to one side than the other. The realization made Jonathan lonely, so he held Nancy tighter. They left the light on.

~*~

Sunday morning, Steve was up and dressed and out of the house much earlier than he needed to be. He wasn't meeting Dustin to enact their plan until noon. When he drove by Jonathan's house, there were no cars outside and no one answered the door. He got the emergency key for the back door out of its hiding place and went into the house.

Immediately his stomach tied up into a knot. There were strange drawings taped _everywhere _around the house. It was cold, and Steve found Will's bedroom window open. Why would they leave it like this? What had happened?

Was it connected to the baby demo-whatsit that Dustin tried to adopt?

No, of course they were connected. How could they not be?

When Steve checked in at the Wheelers' house, Mrs. Wheeler told him that Nancy had just called. She was still at Ally's house, but would be home for dinner.

Steve knew that entire story was bullshit. It had to be. But at least he knew Nancy was still okay. As he walked away, he wondered if it was something he'd done. Was she mad at him?

Also, where the hell was Jonathan? Was he with Nancy? Was he okay? If he'd gotten himself eaten by a baby demo-whatever Steve was going to be so pissed. He'd never forgive Jonathan. Never.

Steve met up with Dustin and they stopped by the hardware store, and then the butcher. Steve shelled out too much of his money, especially given his cut-short hours yesterday. "This had better work," Steve said as he loaded the meat into the trunk of his car.

"It'll work," Dustin insisted, flicking open the brand-new lighter Steve had bought before closing it again. "It has to."

As they walked down the train tracks between the Byers house and the junkyard, they left a trail of meat behind them. Dustin tried to explain why he'd kept the slug, and why he'd lied to his friends about it.

It still didn't make sense to Steve. "You kept it to impress a girl you'd just met?" Steve asked, guessing a kid Dustin's age could definitely be that dumb about a girl. "Why would she even like some disgusting slug, anyway?"

"_Interdimensional _slug," Dustin corrected him. "Because it's awesome!"

"Even if she did like it, which she didn't, I-I just…" Steve sighed, thinking about the way he'd been trying to track down Nancy and Jonathan all weekend. "I think you're trying too hard."

Dejectedly, Dustin muttered, "Well not everyone can have your perfect hair."

"It's not about the hair!" Steve snapped at him before sighing again. "It's about…" God, did Steve even know anymore? "It's about letting a connection … _happen_, and about developing a relationship once there's a connection."

He remembered the first time he'd let himself see Jonathan the way Nancy saw him. He remembered letting himself give in and kiss Jonathan. 

"But how do you know when you have a connection?"

"You can feel it."

"Feel it?" 

"Yeah," Steve told him, trying to find the right words to describe that feeling. It took a few handfuls of meat thrown before he came up with something even remotely close. "It's like before it's gonna storm, you know? You can't see it, but you can feel it. Like this...this electricity? You know?"

Dustin, the poor kid, said, "Oh, like when the electromagnetic field in the clouds–"

"No, no, no," Steve interrupted him. "Like a sexual electricity. When you feel that? That's when you make your move."

"That's when you kiss her?"

Jesus Christ, did this kid know any human beings? Like at all? "No! Slow down, Romeo. I mean, yeah I guess some girls like it when you come on strong, but they're all different."

Dustin thought about this for a few seconds as they walked and threw down chunks of meat. Then he asked, "How do you know what a girl is going to like?"

Steve stopped short and gave a sigh. How was he supposed to explain this to a moron? Finally, Steve went with, "How do you know what any of your friends is going to like?"

"I don't want to kiss my friends."

"No! Like if you wanted to get them a birthday present or something. How would you know what to get them?"

"I guess I...I listen to what they talk about. Or I ask them. Like when I wanted to know what Lucas wanted for his twelfth–"

"Yeah, okay," Steve said, cutting him off before they went down that babble train again. "You've got it. Listen or ask."

Dustin furrowed his brow and made a weird shape with his mouth. "That's _it_? That's how Steve 'The Hair' Harrington got Nancy Freaking Wheeler to go out with him? Listening? Asking? That's it?"

"Well, yeah," Steve said, starting to feel a little self-conscious about the way Dustin was looking at him. "What? There's supposed to be some sort of magic spell? Girls aren't elves or fairies or whatever. They're people. Friends."

"But I don't feel that...that electricity or whatever around my friends." Dustin said, but then something started to click. "Oh! So I should try to be friends with a girl first?"

"Sure," Steve told him. "If that's what gets you there. Just don't be creepy about it, you know? Pushy. And don't set your expectations too high. Sometimes it takes awhile to find that spark. Or, you know, develop it." 

"Is that why you haven't dated anyone since Nancy cheated on you with Jonathan?"

"Jesus Christ!" Steve swore. "How the hell do you know about that?"

"It was all anyone was talking about for awhile there. I mean, I didn't want to believe she would do that to you. She always seemed so cool and nice. But then she started dating Jonathan, so I figured it _had _to be true. But _then _Sissy Carlisle said that you started sitting with Nancy and Jonathan at lunch, so now I don't know what–"

"Dustin, for the love of God, will you please shut up!" Steve cried, unable to take anymore. "Nancy never cheated on me, we never broke up, we're _both _dating Jonathan! So just shut up and–and keep it to yourself, alright?"

"Oh, see? I knew Nancy would never– Hold up." Dustin stopped walking. "Did you just say that _you're _dating Jonathan? You do know that he's a boy, right?"

Steve rolled his eyes and walked away.

"Wait, Steve!" Dustin caught up, getting in front of Steve. "How can you be dating Jonathan? He's a boy!"

"Yes, I am intimately aware of that fact, thanks," Steve said, throwing a handful of meat chunks at Dustin's feet.

Dustin jumped out of the way, but followed Steve silently for a few moments. Eventually, he said, "Sorry. I didn't know someone who–who liked boys could look like you. Sorry."

The thing was, he did sound genuinely sorry. "Yeah, well," Steve told him, slowing down for a step until he was shoulder-to-shoulder with Dustin. "Until last year I didn't know someone who liked boys could look like me either."

Dustin nodded and made a sort of grunt of acknowledgement. Then he said, "So friends, but with electricity, huh?"

"Yep," Steve told him. "And hey, if it doesn't work out with this one girl, you just have to keep looking. Keep making friends."

Sounding despondent, Dustin said, "I've been trying to make friends since kindergarten, and so far I've only made three. I'm thinking my prospects aren't exactly…"

Steve felt bad for the kid. He'd never really been that awkward in middle school. Or maybe he had been, but people let him get away with it because he'd been cute, and his mom had dressed him well, and he'd been good at sports. Maybe Dustin did need a little bit more help.

"Faberge," Steve told him. "Faberge organics shampoo and conditioner. Then when damp – not _wet_, damp – four puffs of Farah Fawcett spray."

"Farah Fawcett?" Dustin asked and he looked like he was about to laugh.

Steve put a finger in his face and said, "You tell anyone what I told you – this or any of the other stuff – your ass is grass. Understand me?"

Dustin nodded. "Yeah. I understand." A few seconds later, he asked, "But really? Farah Fawcett spray?"

Steve went back to the chore of leaving the meat trail. "Yeah. I mean, she's hot, right?"

Dustin made an appreciative noise. "Pretty hair."

"There you go."


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan finally reunite, but the danger isn't over.

The drive back to Hawkins was more tense than Nancy expected it to be. They stopped for gas about two hours away from home, and when she came out of the bathroom, she saw Jonathan at the payphone. "Calling home again?" she asked, setting a hand on his arm. 

"Still not picking up," he told her, a worried frown on his lips. 

"Let's get back there." She pulled Jonathan away from the phone. "Come on. I'll drive."

Jonathan didn't protest, just handed her the keys. God, she hated to see him worried like this.

They made good time back to Hawkins – not many people were out on the road on a Sunday afternoon – and Nancy drove straight to Jonathan's house. She parked in the empty driveway and gave Jonathan's keys back to him before they got to the front door.

Walking into the house felt a lot like the first time she'd been there. Only instead of lights strung up around the house and a hole in the front wall, there were drawings taped up everywhere in some sort of twisting, branching shape. 

"What do you think happened here?" Nancy asked, watching Jonathan start searching the house. She looked around for clues.

"Mom?" Jonathan cried as he made his way through the house. "Will?" A minute later he came out of Will's room with something in his hand. "It's polaroid," he said, showing her a film cartridge. "I don't shoot polaroid. Someone else was here."

Nancy met Jonathan's eyes, and she knew they were thinking the same thing. "Let's go."

The ride to the lab was silent, but mercifully short. The sun finished setting and everything went far, far too dark. Nancy got the feeling that something was very wrong.

"Why are all the lights off?" Jonathan asked, drawing her attention to the fact.

Wanting this to be anything other than what it looked like, Nancy prayed her brother wasn't inside, and said, "Maybe they're closed?"

"And security just took the night off?" Jonathan asked, stepping into the empty gatehouse and pressing buttons.

Nothing happened. "It won't work?"

Jonathan flipped a few more switches – the breakers, Nancy thought. "No. Power's out."

That explained the lack of lights, but not the lack of guards. Nancy looked around for any sign of what was happening, and that's when she heard it. A twig snapped in the woods next to the fence, like someone had stepped on it.

Nancy tapped on Jonathan's shoulder, but she kept her eyes trained on the source of the sound. "Jonathan. Jonathan! I think there's something in the woods."

She caught a glimpse of light coming from that direction, and suddenly she was more curious than afraid. She started moving toward the light, only for Jonathan to hurry and put himself in front of her.

"Hello?" Jonathan called toward the moving light. "Who's there?"

The light became two lights and then a familiar voice. "Jonathan? Nancy?"

"Steve?" Nancy asked, sighing with relief when she could see his face. He had Dustin, Lucas, and some girl with him. No Will. No Mike.

"Where were you guys?" Steve asked, but if he was mad, he didn't show it. Instead he wrapped his arms around both of them. 

"The plan," Nancy told him, surprised but not displeased when he kissed her on the lips. "My plan. We did it."

"What are you doing here?" Jonathan asked, eyeing Mike's friends like he was noticing Will's absence too. He made a surprised noise of protest when Steve kissed him, too. "What the hell?"

"The kids are cool," Steve said, pointing a thumb over his shoulder. "I almost got eaten by demo-dogs. Can I just…?" Steve kissed a very confused Jonathan again, then took another one from Nancy. "I fuckin' missed you guys."

"What are demo-dogs?" Jonathan asked, wiping his mouth with his hand.

"And what _are _you doing here?" Nancy repeated Jonathan's question from earlier.

Lucas and the girl were staring at Steve in disbelief, but Dustin pushed forward and asked, "What are _you_ doing here?"

"Looking for Will and Mike," Nancy told him.

Steve pointed at the fence around the lab. "They're not in _there _are they?"

"We don't know," Jonathan told him.

Noticing the nail bat sticking out of Steve's backpack, Nancy asked, "So what did you say almost killed you?" She grabbed onto Steve's arm, needing to have him where she could touch him.

"Demogorgon dogs," Dustin said, entirely too casually. "Demo-dogs. Monsters? From the Upside Down?"

"They're back?" Jonathan said, just as a noise drew everyone's attention toward the lab. It was an animal sort of howl and it reminded Nancy far too much of the monster from a year ago. All her hair stood on end and she held tight to both Steve and Jonathan.

"There's a rift in there," Nancy told the others. "Some sort of gate. The one Eleven said she opened. We saw it on Friday."

"_That's _why you weren't in school?" Steve asked.

"Getting inside the lab _was _the plan," Nancy told him, not really sure how that was relevant at the moment.

"Well, that's where the demo-dogs were headed, and if Mike and Will are in there…" Steve shook his head in horror.

Jonathan looked again at the locked gate. "We have to get in there and help them."

_Shit_, Nancy thought, looking around at the six of them and the one weapon they had between them. This was not a good situation to be in. _Shit, shit, shit. _

Then she saw it. A light on the fence post lit up. Pointing up at it, Nancy cried out, "Power! The power's back on!"

Jonathan scrambled for the gatehouse, and the gate rumbled open. "What should we do?" he asked.

"We need to go take a look, at least," Nancy said, but looking at these kids, there was no way she could justify bringing them toward any more danger than they were already in. "Steve? Will you keep the kids here? Keep watch, in case something happens?"

Steve looked around at the group and although he swayed closer to her, he nodded. "Be careful," he said, catching Nancy and kissing her again. When he let go of her so she could get in the car, he leaned in through the open driver's window. After giving Jonathan another kiss too, he said, "Gonna be lots of nightmares after tonight, folks. Make sure you come back to me."

"We will," Jonathan promised. He put the car into gear and shared a nod with Nancy before pulling through the gate. 

As they got closer, Nancy could see some sort of red strobing light coming from certain windows of the building. She opened her window and heard the faint alarm, followed by what sounded like gunshots.

"I see movement by the doors," Jonathan said, driving past the parking lot and onto the driveway that led up to the front. 

"I see Mike!" Nancy cried.

"And Hopper!" Jonathan honked the horn as he pulled up next to the building. He called out to them as Nancy recognized Joyce as the person next to Hopper. "Come on! Get in!"

Figures slammed up against the inside of the glass doors of the building, and Nancy couldn't see them very clearly, but the way they moved was _wrong _and _hostile_. She wished she had a gun. 

Hopper shoved Mike, Joyce, and a wrapped-up figure Nancy thought had to be Will all into the car. "Go! Go!"

"What about you?" Nancy called out as Hopper vaulted over a short wall and ran to the parking lot.

Jonathan had to drive by Hopper's truck to get to the exit. Nancy shouted to Hopper as they passed. "There's kids just outside the gate!"

"I'll get 'em!" he bellowed back. "You _drive_!"

Jonathan stepped on the gas, and Nancy turned back to look at the others. She reached out to Mike, clasping his hand, even as he had most of his attention on bundled-up Will.

"What's wrong with him?" Nancy asked.

"The shadow monster," Mike said through tears. "Turned him into a spy."

"Is he okay?" Jonthan asked.

"We had to sedate him," Joyce said, holding Will close. She had a haunted look in her eyes.

"Are _you _okay?" Nancy asked her.

Before Joyce could respond, Jonathan hit the horn a few times. They were approaching the gate. The kids and Steve cleared out of the way and Jonathan drove past them, trusting Hopper to keep his word and stop.

"I'll be okay," Joyce said, turning to watch Hopper pick up the others, and then catch back up. "It’s just … so many people back there… This one technician helped us turn the power back on. He helped us get out."

"His name was Bob," Mike said, sniffling and wiping his nose on his sleeve. "He was nice."

If Nancy could have given her brother a tight, two-armed hug she would have done it. She made do by sitting sideways in her seat and holding his hand.

Hopper passed them and turned on his flashing lights, leading the way from the lab. They ended up at Jonathan's house, barricading themselves inside.

Hopper got on the phone, and Jonathan collapsed down next to his brother. Nancy and Steve sat together at Jonathan's back.

"What are we going to do?" the boys' friend, Max, asked.

Nancy had no idea. The monsters were back, there were a lot of them this time, Will was some sort of spy for them, and a shadow monster from the upside down was behind all of it. Nancy knew how to get a covert tape to a journalist. Fighting monsters? She'd only ever fought one before.

"Can we burn them?" she asked the others.

"Not without hurting Will," Mike told her. "He's connected to it."

"Well, how do we _disconnect_ him?" Jonathan asked. Nancy hated the raw desperation in his voice. She put her hand on his shoulder, and Steve put a hand on his back.

"I don't know," Mike said, taking a step closer, his eyes on Will. "But I think I know who might."

~*~

As they were picking through the stuff from the Byers' shed, Steve watched Nancy. Eventually he admitted, "I was worried about you guys."

Nancy's face fell. "I'm sorry," she said. "We–" she paused, swallowing. "I thought if we told you we were about to set the plan in motion, you would have tried to stop us."

Steve considered that, and figured it made sense, in a fucked up sort of way. "You can't just not tell me stuff because of the way you think I'll react. That's _not _clear communication, Miss Wheeler."

Mentioning the book chapters Nancy had photocopied and made him read back in January must have surprised her, because Nancy laughed. "No, I guess it's not."

Steve found one of the space heaters they were looking for and picked it up. "I'm sorry, too. I haven't been my usual self lately. Why, _why _did you let me chug straight vodka?"

Nancy laughed again, and Steve smiled. God, he'd missed that sound. Unable to stop himself, Steve dropped the space heater, went over to her, and pulled Nancy into his arms. He thought about everything that had happened over the past couple days and told her, "When I thought those dog things were going to eat me? All I could think about was how much I wanted to make sure you knew I loved you."

Nancy sniffled, burying her face against Steve's shoulder. "I love you, too," she said, tilting her head up and kissing him. "The reporter we met?" she said, pressing her forehead against Steve's shoulder again. "He could tell Jonathan and I were incomplete without someone more. Without you."

Jesus Christ! Steve felt like his whole chest was about to swell up and burst like a balloon. He cleared his throat, trying to release some of the pressure, but it only started to ease when a few tears started rolling down his cheeks. "Don't leave town again without me, huh?"

"I won't. We won't," she promised.

"Hey!" called Hopper from the house, startling Steve and making Nancy jump. "Enough canoodling! Let's go!"

Steve picked up the space heater again and gave it to Nancy. "You should go with them," he told her. "Jonathan's going to need you."

"I can't just leave Mike," she said, even as she reached for the heater. "He's my brother."

"Hey. You look after my family," he said, pointing toward the Byers' house. "I'll look after yours."

Nancy looked at Steve for a long moment before she nodded. "Yeah, okay. You get to be the babysitter."

"I'm a damn good babysitter," Steve insisted, making Nancy smile again.

He helped load up Jonathan's car, taking a moment to pull Jonathan into a long hug as well. Thinking he had nothing to lose if the world was about to end, Steve stole a quick kiss and snorted when he heard Hopper say, "Oh, geeze!" Then Hopper asked Joyce, "Are you really okay with this?"

"Don't be stupid," Joyce told him. "Of course." And that was that.

Jonathan, Nancy, Joyce, and Will left in one car. Hopper and the newly-returned Eleven (Jesus, what a weird kid) left in another. Steve was left alone with the rest of the thirteen-year-olds. All of them, except Dustin and Mike, looking at him like he had two heads.

"Oh, get over it," he told them with a huff, going inside and looking around what was left of the Byers' house.

Steve knew that Joyce, Hopper, and Mike had done most of this, putting together the map that Will had drawn. The broken window and the dead demo-dog were a different story altogether. Steve pulled the broom and dustpan out of the closet and gave them to Dustin. "Let's at least get the window covered and the broken glass cleaned up."

"I'll get some cardboard and tape for the window," Mike said, heading for the back door.

"What are we supposed to do with _that_?" Lucas asked, pointing at the dead thing.

Steve knew that they'd used all the garbage bags to disguise the shed for Will. The ancient blanket that lived on top of the couch would have to do. "I'll take it outside," he told the kids, grabbing the blanket.

"Wait!" Dustin said, handing the broom to Lucas and standing between Steve and the demo-dog. "This is an important specimen. It's a species from another dimension! We have to preserve it!"

"Preserve it?" Steve asked, suddenly very much regretting taking this babysitting job. "How in the hell are we going to preserve it?"

This was how Steve found himself trying to stuff the body of an alien dog into Joyce's refrigerator.

After he was done, a loud engine told him a car was driving up toward the house. "Oh my god," Max said, "my stupid step-brother is here! If he finds me, he's gonna kill me!"

“I’ll take care of this,” Steve told her. “Get out of sight. All of you.”

He stepped out onto the porch, closing the door behind him. Billy got out of his car and started moving toward the house. “Harrington, am I dreaming or is that you?”

Damn, the guy was all dressed up tonight. What the hell was he doing here looking like _that_? Gunning for a date? “Yeah, it’s me. Don’t cream your pants.”

Steve regretted the line as soon as he said it. 

Billy stepped up closer, meeting Steve in the driveway and blowing smoke in his face. "What are you doing here?"

Since answering that would require telling Billy way too much, Steve turned the question around on him. "What are _you _doing here?"

Billy's smile made Steve's blood run cold. "Looking for my little sister. 'Bout that tall," he held out his hand at roughly Max's height, "red hair, bit of a bitch."

Steve bristled at the description. He'd only known Max for a few hours, but she seemed like an alright kid. There was no way he was going to let Billy find her if she didn't want to be found. "Sorry. Don't know her."

"Really?" Billy said with another mean laugh. "Because I went by the Wheelers' place – nice place they've got – and Mrs. Wheeler said she'd be here."

The way Billy's eyes lit up when he mentioned Nancy's mom made Steve feel a little sick. "Don't know what to tell you. She's not here."

Billy sighed. "See, this whole thing is starting to give me the heebie-jeebies. I find you with my sister at some stranger's house and you _lie to me about it_?" He sneered. "Doesn't seem right. Seems like maybe the reason you haven't fucked any of the high school girls since Nancy Wheeler is 'cause your tastes started running a little younger. Huh?"

"That's disgusting!" Steve cried, really starting to think it was time to start throwing punches. "Who even thinks like that? Get lost. Your sister isn't here."

Pointing toward the house with his cigarette, Billy asked, "So who the hell is that?"

Steve turned to look over his shoulder only to see all four kids ducking down below the windowsill. "Oh, shit."

As Steve turned back around, he saw Billy about to push him. He danced out of the way well enough to stay on his feet. This left the way to the house open, which Billy took advantage of. Billy burst into the house, but Steve was right on his tail. Steve grabbed the collar of Billy's jacket and hauled him back out of the house and off the porch.

"Get the hell out of my house!"

"_Your _house?" Billy asked as he regained his footing. "What the hell do you mean this is your house? _This _shithole?" He laughed. "I thought your dad was supposed to be loaded."

"Go away," Steve told him. "I will get Max home, but I'm not letting you anywhere near her."

That's when Billy decided to take a swing. He telegraphed the move pretty badly, so Steve ducked. He came up swinging. Steve's fist connected with Billy's face, sending him staggering.

Billy laughed, wiping the blood from under his nose. He took another swing. Steve ducked and hit him again, knocking him further from the house.

"Yeah!" Dusting called from the doorway. "Kick his ass, Steve!"

This time, instead of taking a swing, Billy straight-up football tackled Steve, pushing him back toward the house. Steve's feet found purchase on the porch steps, stopping his backward slide.

That's when Billy pulled some sort of Kung Fu, wrestling move and grabbed Steve's leg, tipping him until his back hit the porch, knocking the wind out of him. Billy brought his foot down and Steve rolled just enough to take the blow on his ribs instead of on his stomach.

The pain of the cracking blow took Steve's breath away. He was left coughing on the porch as Billy stepped over him and pushed his way into the house. The kids yelled and screamed and Steve couldn't just leave them defenseless. Summoning all the strength he could muster, Steve got up and staggered into the house.

He found Max and Dustin pushed to the ground, Mike yelling, and Lucas in Billy's clutches. Billy ran Lucas into the kitchen cabinet where Joyce kept all her decorative jars. They were the ones her mother gave her.

One of the jars fell to the ground and broke. Steve saw red. He ignored his screaming ribs and jerked Billy away from Lucas, right into his left fist. "Get the hell out, asshole!"

Billy laughed again, but it sounded desperate this time. He tried to hit Steve, or maybe he was going for Dustin, but Steve got them both out of the way in time. Billy’s fist hit the little shelf where Joyce kept her cookbooks. The shelf and all the books fell.

Steve had only ever seen Jonathan use those recipes. 

He hit Billy again before backing off, getting all the kids behind him. Billy just kept coming. The coffee table wasn't where Steve expected it to be as he backed up and he stumbled.

“Isn’t this sweet,” Billy said, throwing a punch that Steve couldn’t duck in time. The blow sent him dizzy, his ears ringing. “–ng Steve! Protector of middle school _freaks_!”

“You’re the freak,” Max shouted at him, screaming when Billy pushed her down again. 

Steve threw himself at Billy without any sort of plan, wrestling him to the ground. Steve almost had him pinned down when Billy knocked his knee into the same ribs he’d kicked earlier. 

Bright pain flashed through Steve’s body and his hold on Billy slipped. His eyes watered and he didn’t see the punch until it was too late. In the fuzziness that followed, Steve felt Billy roll them over, straddling Steve. Holding him down. 

_Fuck_. He’d fucked up.

One more teeth-rattling blow and everything went dark.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nancy helps Jonathan and Joyce free Will of the Mind Flayer, and Steve comes to the conclusion that babysitting is harder than it looks.

Jonathan hated this plan. He hated it more than anything in his entire life. The only reason he was going through with it was because it seemed like the only option they had.

He winced as his mom tied Will's arms and legs tightly to the bed. This was his little brother, the person he was supposed to protect. Instead of protecting him, Jonathan set up the space heaters around him and turned them on. Nancy lit the fireplace.

Hopper's cabin warmed up quickly, and the sweat prickled out of Jonathan's pores. Nancy ditched her sweater before coming to stand next to him at Will's bedside, waiting for something to happen. Jonathan took her hand, needing the comfort, needing her to help him stay strong. As the sedative wore off, Will started to stir, making uncomfortable noises. Jonathan squeezed Nancy's hand harder. Joyce turned up the heaters. The whole room sweltered.

Will whined. He pleaded. He screamed.

"It's too much!" Jonathan shouted, reaching for one of the heaters to turn it off.

"No," Joyce said, batting his hand away. Nancy pulled him back.

As Will's screams got louder, Jonathan couldn't look. He turned away from Will, holding onto Nancy and letting her watch for him.

Even when Will broke free and started strangling his mom, Jonathan still felt paralyzed. If he helped Joyce, it meant hurting Will. He couldn't hurt _Will_. Never!

Nancy grabbed a hot poker from the fireplace and pressed it to Will's side before Jonathan could stop her. 

It worked, but even as the shadow monster left Will Jonathan just kept wondering how Nancy could have done something like that. It was smart, but it was ruthless too. The realization scared him.

On the drive back home, no one spoke. Will fell asleep, probably exhausted by the whole ordeal. Joyce kept watch over Will. Nancy sat in the passenger seat, looking forward. Jonathan stole the occasional glance over at her, but it felt like she was avoiding looking back.

Maybe she knew. Maybe she'd never imagined herself capable of hurting someone like that, either.

When they got back home, an unfamiliar car sat in the driveway. Upon closer look, didn't it belong to that new kid? Billy? When Jonathan got out of his car, he could hear the other engine still ticking slowly as it cooled. Was Billy inside? 

Jonathan shared a look with Nancy before they both rushed inside. The scene that found made Jonathan just ask, "What?"

Billy was passed out on the living room floor with his wrists and ankles duct taped together. Steve sat at the kitchen table holding a bag of ice to his head. Dustin, Lucas, and Max were all passed out upright on the couch. And Mike came out of Will's room, his eyes wide.

"Did it work?" Mike asked, and Jonathan noticed a bandana around his neck. He was pretty sure it was the one his mom sometimes used to tie up her hair when she was cleaning.

"Yeah," Jonathan told Mike, turning back to help Joyce carry Will into the house.

When Jonathan came back through the house, Will clinging to him sleepily, Nancy was with Steve. She winced down at him, and now that Jonathan got a proper look, he saw that Steve's face was a beat-up wreck. Mike followed Jonathan into Will's room, sighing with relief when Will opened his eyes and reached for Mike's hand.

"I'll be right back," Jonathan told them, before heading toward the kitchen. Nancy was pawing through the first aid kit she must have retrieved from the bathroom when Jonathan came in and asked Steve, "What happened?" 

"Got beat up," Steve said, reaching for Jonathan and squeezing his wrist. "How come nobody ever told me babysitting was this hard before?"

Jonathan laughed and shared an uneasy look with Nancy. Her eyes dropped down after a second, landing on the tube of burn cream in her hands. She held it in front of her chest, looking up to meet his eyes. "Will you let me do it?"

Jonathan hated the way he hesitated, but Will's screams were still fresh in his mind. 

Then Nancy said, "Hey. Which one of us has burned themselves on a curling iron before?" She gave him a gentle smile.

Jonathan nodded. She grabbed some gauze and bandage tape as well before heading to Will's room.

Looking up at Jonathan with the eye he wasn't holding the ice pack against, Steve said, "You do realize her hair is naturally curly, right?" Jonathan had no idea what Steve meant by that. It must have shown because he explained. "She doesn't use a curling iron."

"Damn," Jonathan said when he understood what Nancy had done. Maybe she'd lied. Or maybe she'd used one on someone else. In any case, it was sweet. She was trying to make things right.

Looking at Steve, Jonathan told him, "You're a mess." He grabbed a clean dish towel and wet it in the sink before sitting down, facing Steve. He started with Steve's free hand, cleaning the bloody knuckles.

"Careful, Byers," Steve said in a drawl, and he was smiling when Jonathan looked up at him. "I might think you're coming on to me."

Jonathan laughed, but then he stopped short. "Why do you smell like gasoline?"

"It wasn't my idea," he said, blinking as he set the ice bottle on the table. Jesus, the entire left half of his face was bloody and swollen. "The dipshits dragged me along while I was unconscious."

Jonathan didn't want the details right now. Maybe later. He said, "Your nose looks broken. We should get it set at the hospital."

"How am I supposed to explain that to my parents? I'm already in deep shit for being out on a school night."

"There's gonna be some sort of cover story, like before," Jonathan told him, carefully dabbing away the worst of the blood. 

Steve laughed, but Jonathan didn't understand the joke. Shaking his head a little, Steve said, "After you beat me up last year, Nancy told my mom I fell out of a tree."

"And she believed it?" Jonathan laughed. Okay, maybe it was a little funny.

"Sweetie?" Joyce said from the kitchen doorway. "Would you mind driving all these kids home? Their parents must be so worried."

"What should I tell them?" Jonathan asked. 

"Oh, I don't know," Joyce said, looking a little lost as her gaze skittered around the room. "We all fell asleep watching a movie or something."

"Sure," Jonathan said, squeezing Steve's wrist and handing him the bloody towel.

~*~

Steve watched Nancy leave with Jonathan and the kids before he caught Joyce gently by the arm. He hadn't wanted the others to worry, but as the pain really set in, he couldn't let it wait any longer. "I'm pretty sure I've got a broken rib."

"Shit," she said, sitting down across from him. "Okay. Show me." Steve thought it weird that he felt less self-conscious taking his shirt off in front of Joyce than he would have in front of his own mother. The injury made it hard for him to lift up his left arm, and Joyce stepped in and helped when she saw him struggling.

"What did this to you? Or did you fall? Dustin was telling me they dragged you to the tunnels."

"The tunnels didn't help," Steve admitted, hissing when Joyce gently pressed against his side with her fingertips. "But mostly it was Billy. I don't think we should let him go home with Max."

Nodding with that wide-eyed look of hers, Joyce told Steve, "We'll see what we can do." Frowning, she pressed at Steve's ribs again. "When Jonathan gets back, I'll have him take you to the hospital." 

"Thanks," he said, accepting the gentle hug that she gave him.

As it turned out, Hopper showed up before Jonathan did. After hearing ten seconds of Steve's explanation, Hopper left Eleven with Joyce and Will, hand-cuffed Billy, and dropped him off in the drunk tank at the police station before taking Steve to the hospital.

While he was waiting with Steve in between X-rays, and bandages, and setting Steve's nose, Hopper drew the whole story of that weekend out of him. "It was you guys," he said as Steve got to the end of the story. "You drew those dog things away from us."

"I mean, that's what we were hoping to do. It worked?"

"It worked." Hopper took Steve's hand and shook it. "Thank you, son."

"Oh, anytime," Steve said, looking up as the door opened and his father walked through it.

"God almighty," Fred sighed with a deep frown when he saw Hopper sitting there. "What sort of trouble has my son gotten into now?

"No trouble," Hopper insisted, standing up and introducing himself as the Chief of Police. "Your son is a very brave young man. He saved several children, including my daughter, from their attacker today."

"He–he _what_?" Steve almost laughed at Fred's complete and utter surprise. He turned to Steve and asked, "What the hell were you up to today?"

"Would you believe babysitting?" Steve asked.

Hopper snorted. Then he spun a tale so normal and mundane that Steve wished he'd been taking notes. There's been a gathering of friends, a mother called away to work a shift at the hospital, Steve taking the babysitting gig as easy cash, the mother's jealous ex showing up, and finally Steve getting his ass kicked, but holding off the drunken ex long enough for the police to get there.

Steve had no idea how Hopper was going to back up his story, since he was sure Fred would push to sue the bastard who had beaten his poor, _beloved _son. He'd probably have help from the scary Feds. As the pain pills set in, Steve opted not to worry about it. Not yet, anyway.

~*~

"Are you sure you want to be here for this?" Steve asked Nancy as the buzzer rang to start the game. "I'm not even going to get to play until after the new year."

"Don't be silly," Nancy told Steve. "You're team captain, broken ribs or no. I wouldn't miss it."

"Hey," Jonathan said as he sat down on Nancy's other side. "Sorry I'm late."

Nancy spotted something sticking out from under Jonathan's arm. "Is that what I think it is?"

"They're starting to hit the stands," Jonathan told her, handing over _The Indianapolis Star_. 

Nancy hurriedly unfolded it, and saw the headline – below the fold, but still front page. "Director of Hawkins Lab Allegedly Admits Culpability in Teen's Death."

"Oh," Nancy sighed, running her hand over the headline. "Have you ever seen anything so beautiful before?"

"Hopper says it might hit the national papers by Sunday."

Nancy grinned at the article again. To her, the only thing that seemed off about it was the byline. 

Leaning over Nancy, Steve asked Jonathan, "He 'having dinner' at your house again?"

"Yeah," Jonathan said. In a low voice, he added, "Mom made it clear that I should stay out of the house until Hop picks Eleven up from Nancy's house. I'm thinking we'll just want to end up at your place tonight." Jonathan nodded to Steve.

"Again?" Nancy asked, mirroring Jonathan's disgusted face. Sure, it was kind of sweet, but not exactly something she wanted to think about.

"It's cool," Steve told them. "My parents are actually out of town until Sunday. You won't even have to climb the ladder."

Nancy smiled at the thought. She wanted to hold onto Steve and set her chin on his shoulder, and make him smile in return. She didn't, because they were in public, and at school no less. She settled for just knocking her knee against his.

Otherwise, everything felt better, easier than it had before. Barb was still gone, and her loss still made Nancy ache, but at least it didn't seem like such a _waste _anymore. After hearing tales of his heroics, Steve's parents had been lengthening his leash. She suspected that by Christmas they'd be back to neglecting him again. Nancy's parents weren't _too _happy that she'd skipped a day of school, and earned detention for it, but Mike's sudden attitude change meant they forgot about it almost immediately. Jonathan had his brother back, hopefully for good. As for Joyce and Hopper? Well, it was like Murray said. They had the real shit – shared trauma.

Nancy had heard through Jonathan that Billy spent the night in jail on charges of driving while intoxicated and trespassing. A trial would have been too messy, so Hopper had his department drop the charges. Of course this was with the understanding that Hopper would be watching Billy, ready to pounce if he so much as looked at somebody wrong.

So, Billy was out on the basketball court, starting for the team while Steve was stuck not even _on _the bench, but _behind _it. At least it was only for the next four weeks while his cracked rib and broken nose healed. It wasn't fair, but Nancy supposed not everything would ever work out perfectly fairly for everyone. 

For his part, Steve had gotten pretty good at playing the sympathy card. He even had a "date" to the after-game pizza party. Poor Shelly Butler. She had no idea Steve was a dead end for her. Even almost a year along, he only had eyes for her and Jonathan.

Nancy tucked the newspaper into her bag for later and then put her hand into Jonathan's. Ten minutes into the game he got bored and started playing with her fingers. It felt nice and made her smile.

She wasn't sure what the rest of the year was going to bring, but she felt a lot more optimistic about it than she had in a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it for this installment! Be sure to subscribe to the series for more. I've got a one-shot fic (Solstice) that I'll post tomorrow, and then I'll start posting chapters for my season 3 retelling, Nightmare.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading and commenting! 
> 
> You can find me on [tumblr](https://pterawaters.tumblr.com/) and [pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.social/pterawaters).


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